[gst-devel] Re: [gst-cvs] CVS: gstreamer/gst gstbuffer.c,1.36.2.7,1.36.2.8 gstbuffer.h,1.26.4.3,1.26.4.4

[vishnu at pobox.com]

On Sun, Sep 23, 2001 at 03:04:01PM +0200, Wim Taymans wrote:
> On Sun, 2001-09-23 at 08:03, Joshua Pritikin wrote:
> > Modified Files:
> >       Tag: BRANCH-EVENTS1
> > 	gstbuffer.c gstbuffer.h 
> > Log Message:
> > 1 Add GST_BUFFER_WHERE support to bytestream.
> 
> I don't like this patch at all. 
> 
> It screws up automatic doc generation, adds bloat, looks ugly and should
> be done in a more general way IMO, ie. not only on buffer creation but
> as a general trace feature (possibly with -finstrument-functions). I've
> added a print_stack_trace feature in my local copy using the
> -finstrument-functions option that does exactly what this patch does and
> more (and cleaner).

Fine, then put your code in CVS!  Taaz & i spent too much time trying
to figure out a memory leak.  *Something* had to me done.  Gstreamer
is too hard to debug without an easy way to analyze buffer usage.

i see that -finstrument-functions offers an exact stack trace.  i didn't
know about this gcc 3.0 feature until now -- i would have used it myself.
Obviously, that's a lot cleaner than passing __FILE__,__LINE__ info
around.

Wim, why are you keeping all these great debugging tools to yourself??
Taaz & i have been complaining about this problem all week and you
were silent.

> Another option (and an idea I have been toying with for some time) is to
> create a GstElementBox element that would fork() and let an arbitrary
> element (even bin) run in its own address space. Communication between
> the processes would be done using shm or pipes. This would make
> monitoring the element much more flexible and accurate without ugly
> hacks.

That sounds great.  The co/threads also cause problems with various
memory checking tools.  An option to not use co/threads would be
very welcome.

> so, let's not get into this and back out the patch before someone starts
> adding similar code to GstProps/Caps/Events/whatmore.

i'm happy to back it out.  The patch has served its purpose eliciting
better suggestions.  Up until now, i felt myself stuck in an
information vacuum.

-- 
Victory to the Divine Mother!!
  http://sahajayoga.org