[gst-devel] debugging and gstreamer

[Andy Wingo]

hi. there's been some griping lately about debugging and gstreamer. it
is a mess. i'd like to start the discussion of what the right solution
should look like.

requirements:
 1. informative messages to the application developer about what's going
    on
 2. warnings when functions are given bad input
 3. on fatal errors, offer the possibility of a stack trace
 4. messages to the user about pipeline events

1) is covered by GST_INFO and GST_DEBUG, although arguably they are the
same thing.

2) is covered by g_warning. imo g_return_val_if_fail should not prompt
for a stack trace as it does now.

3) we need to use GST_ERROR more, it seems. maybe this can be integrated
with the debugging facilities offered to us by glib.

4) is covered by pipeline messages. it's in gstelement.c iirc.


so to me it seems we just need some sort of policy about when to use
these. what's more likely is that i have the requirements wrong somehow
;) so i'd be interested in hearing how to make this better, be it from
omega, wtay, or a mortal even ;-)

regards,

wingo.