# Initializing GStreamer

When writing a GStreamer application, you can simply include gst/gst.h to get access to the library functions.

Before the GStreamer libraries can be used gst_init () has to be performed from the main app. this call will perform first initialisation and will parse the GStreamer specific command line options.

A typical program would start like this:

    #include <gst/gst.h>

    ...

    int
    main (int argc, char *argv[])
    {
      ...
      gst_init (&argc, &argv);
      ...
    }

It is also possible to call the gst_init method with two NULL argumants.

Use the GST_VERSION_MAJOR, GST_VERSION_MINOR and GST_VERSION_MICRO macros to get the GStreamer version you are building against.