<chapter id="cha-bins">
<title>Bins</title>
<para>
A Bin is a container element. You can add elements to a bin. Since a bin is
an <classname>GstElement</classname> itself, it can also be added to another bin.
</para>
<para>
Bins allow you to combine connected elements into one logical element. You do
not deal with the individual elements anymore but with just one element, the bin.
We will see that this is extremely powerful when you are going to construct
complex pipelines since it allows you to break up the pipeline in smaller chunks.
</para>
<para>
The bin will also manage the elements contained in it. It will figure out how
the data will flow in the bin and generate an optimal plan for that data flow. Plan
generation is one of the most complicated procedures in GStreamer.
</para>
<figure float="1" id="sec-bin-img">
<title>Visualisation of a <classname>GstBin</classname> element with some elements in it</title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="images/bin-element.&magic;" format="&magic;" />
</imageobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
<para>
There are two standard bins available to the GStreamer programmer:
<itemizedlist>
<listitem>
<para>
A pipeline (<classname>GstPipeline</classname>). Which is a generic container you will
use most of the time. The toplevel bin has to be a pipeline.
</para>
</listitem>
<listitem>
<para>
A thread (<classname>GstThread</classname>). The plan for the
<classname>GstThread</classname> will be run in a separate thread. You will have to use
this bin if you have to carefully synchronize audio and video, for example. You will learn
more about threads in <xref linkend="cha-threads"/>.
</para>
</listitem>
</itemizedlist>
</para>
<sect1 id="sec-bin-create">
<title>Creating a bin</title>
<para>
Bins register themselves in the GStreamer registry, so they can be created in the normal way:
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *bin, *thread, *pipeline;
/* create a new bin called 'mybin'. this bin will be only for organizational purposes; a normal
GstBin doesn't affect plan generation */
bin = gst_element_factory_make ("bin", "mybin");
/* create a new thread, and give it a unique name */
thread = gst_element_factory_make ("thread", NULL);
/* the core bins (GstBin, GstThread, GstPipeline) also have convenience APIs,
gst_<bintype>_new (). these are equivalent to the gst_element_factory_make () syntax. */
pipeline = gst_pipeline_new ("pipeline_name");
</programlisting>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sec-bin-adding">
<title>Adding elements to a bin</title>
<para>
Elements are added to a bin with the following code sample:
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *element;
GstElement *bin;
bin = gst_bin_new ("mybin");
element = gst_element_factory_make ("mpg123", "decoder");
gst_bin_add (GST_BIN (bin), element);
...
</programlisting>
<para>
Bins and threads can be added to other bins too. This allows you to create nested bins. Note
that it doesn't make very much sense to add a <classname>GstPipeline</classname> to anything,
as it's a toplevel bin that needs to be explicitly iterated.
</para>
<para>
To get an element from the bin you can use:
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *element;
element = gst_bin_get_by_name (GST_BIN (bin), "decoder");
...
</programlisting>
<para>
You can see that the name of the element becomes very handy for retrieving the
element from an bin by using the element's name. gst_bin_get_by_name () will
recursively search nested bins.
</para>
<para>
To get a list of elements in a bin, use:
</para>
<programlisting>
GList *elements;
elements = gst_bin_get_list (GST_BIN (bin));
while (elements) {
GstElement *element = GST_ELEMENT (elements->data);
g_print ("element in bin: %s\n", GST_OBJECT_NAME (GST_OBJECT (element)));
elements = g_list_next (elements);
}
...
</programlisting>
<para>
To remove an element from a bin use:
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *element;
gst_bin_remove (GST_BIN (bin), element);
...
</programlisting>
<para>
To add many elements to a bin at the same time, try the gst_bin_add_many () API. Remember to
pass NULL as the last argument.
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *filesrc, *decoder, *audiosink;
GstBin *bin;
/* instantiate the elements and the bins... */
gst_bin_add_many (bin, filesrc, decoder, audiosink, NULL);
</programlisting>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sec-bin-custom">
<title>Custom bins</title>
<para>
The application programmer can create custom bins packed with elements to perform a
specific task. This allow you to write an MPEG audio decoder with just the follwing lines
of code:
</para>
<programlisting>
/* create the mp3player element */
GstElement *mp3player = gst_element_factory_make ("mp3player", "mp3player");
/* set the source mp3 audio file */
g_object_set (G_OBJECT (mp3player), "location", "helloworld.mp3", NULL);
/* start playback */
gst_element_set_state (GST_ELEMENT (mp3player), GST_STATE_PLAYING);
...
/* pause playback */
gst_element_set_state (GST_ELEMENT (mp3player), GST_STATE_PAUSED);
...
/* stop */
gst_element_set_state (GST_ELEMENT (mp3player), GST_STATE_NULL);
</programlisting>
<para>
Note that the above code assumes that the mp3player bin derives itself from a
<classname>GstThread</classname>, which begins to play as soon as its state is set to PLAYING.
Other bin types may need explicit iteration. For more information, see <xref
linkend="cha-threads"/>.
Custom bins can be created with a plugin or an XML description. You will find more
information about creating custom bin in the Plugin Writers Guide (FIXME ref).
</para>
</sect1>
<sect1 id="sec-bin-ghostpads">
<title>Ghost pads</title>
<para>
You can see from figure <xref linkend="sec-bin-noghost-img"/> how a bin has no pads of its own.
This is where "ghost pads" come into play.
</para>
<figure float="1" id="sec-bin-noghost-img">
<title>Visualisation of a <classname>GstBin</classname> element without ghost pads</title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="images/bin-element-noghost.&magic;" format="&magic;" />
</imageobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
<para>
A ghost pad is a pad from some element in the bin that has been promoted to the bin.
This way, the bin also has a pad. The bin becomes just another element with a pad and
you can then use the bin just like any other element. This is a very important feature
for creating custom bins.
</para>
<figure float="1" id="sec-bin-ghost-img">
<title>Visualisation of a <classname>GstBin</classname> element with a ghost pad</title>
<mediaobject>
<imageobject>
<imagedata fileref="images/bin-element-ghost.&magic;" format="&magic;" />
</imageobject>
</mediaobject>
</figure>
<para>
Above is a representation of a ghost pad. The sink pad of element one is now also a pad
of the bin.
</para>
<para>
Ghost pads can actually be added to all <classname>GstElement</classname>s and not just
<classname>GstBin</classname>s. Use the following code example to add a ghost pad to a bin:
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *bin;
GstElement *element;
element = gst_element_factory_create ("mad", "decoder");
bin = gst_bin_new ("mybin");
gst_bin_add (GST_BIN (bin), element);
gst_element_add_ghost_pad (bin, gst_element_get_pad (element, "sink"), "sink");
</programlisting>
<para>
In the above example, the bin now also has a pad: the pad called 'sink' of the
given element. We can now, for example, connect the srcpad of a filesrc to the
bin with:
</para>
<programlisting>
GstElement *filesrc;
filesrc = gst_element_factory_create ("filesrc", "disk_reader");
gst_element_connect_pads (filesrc, "src", bin, "sink");
...
</programlisting>
</sect1>
</chapter>