1 <refentry id="gst-running" revision="08 Oct 2005">
3 <refentrytitle>Running GStreamer Applications</refentrytitle>
4 <manvolnum>3</manvolnum>
5 <refmiscinfo>GStreamer Core</refmiscinfo>
9 <refname>Running GStreamer Applications</refname>
11 How to run and debug your GStreamer application
16 <title>Running and debugging GStreamer Applications</title>
19 <title>Environment variables</title>
22 GStreamer inspects a few of environment variables in addition to standard
23 variables like <envar>LANG</envar>, <envar>PATH</envar> or <envar>HOME</envar>.
26 <formalpara id="GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH">
27 <title><envar>GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH</envar></title>
31 This environment variable can be set to a colon-separated list of paths.
32 If this variable is not set, GStreamer will fill in this list for you
37 plug-ins in the user's home directory. These are stored in a directory called
38 <filename>plugins</filename> inside the
39 <filename>.gstreamer-&GST_MAJORMINOR;</filename> directory in the user's
45 plug-ins installed system-wide. On this system, they are stored in
46 <filename>&GST_PLUGINS_DIR;</filename>.
54 GStreamer will scan these paths for GStreamer plug-ins. These plug-ins will
55 be loaded after the plug-ins in the GST_PLUGIN_PATH variable below.
57 The paths are scanned in the given order. This allows a user to override
58 system-installed plug-ins with his own versions.
62 Setting this variable to an empty string will cause GStreamer not to scan any
63 system paths at all for plug-ins. This can be useful if you're running
64 uninstalled (for development purposes) or while running testsuites.
69 <formalpara id="GST_PLUGIN_PATH">
70 <title><envar>GST_PLUGIN_PATH</envar></title>
73 This environment variable can be set to a colon-separated list of paths.
74 GStreamer will scan these paths for GStreamer plug-ins. These plug-ins will
75 be loaded in addition to, and before, the plug-ins in the system paths.
81 <title><envar>GST_DEBUG</envar></title>
84 If GStreamer has been configured with <option>--enable-gst-debug=yes</option>,
85 this variable can be set to a list of debug options, which cause GStreamer
86 to print out different types of debugging information to stderr.
89 The variable takes a comma-separated list of "category_name:level" pairs
90 to set specific levels for the individual categories.
91 The level value ranges from 0 (nothing) to 5 (LOG).
95 <term>1 - <option>ERROR</option></term>
98 Logs all fatal errors. These are errors that do not allow the core or elements
99 to perform the requested action. The application can still recover if
100 programmed to handle the conditions that triggered the error.
106 <term>2 - <option>WARNING</option></term>
109 Logs all warnings. Typically these are non-fatal, but user-visible problems
110 are expected to happen.
116 <term>3 - <option>INFO</option></term>
119 Logs all informational messages. These are typically used for events in
120 the system that only happen once, or are important and rare enough to be
121 logged at this level.
127 <term>4 - <option>DEBUG</option></term>
130 Logs all debug messages. These are general debug messages for events
131 that happen only a limited number of times during an object's lifetime;
132 these include setup, teardown, change of parameters, ...
138 <term>5 - <option>LOG</option></term>
141 Logs all log messages. These are messages for events
142 that happen repeatedly during an object's lifetime;
143 these include streaming and steady-state conditions.
149 The category_name can contain "<option>*"</option> as a wildcard.
153 For example, setting <envar>GST_DEBUG</envar> to
154 <option>GST_AUTOPLUG:5,GST_ELEMENT_*:3</option>, will cause the
155 <option>GST_AUTOPLUG</option> category to be logged at full
156 <option>LOG</option> level, while all categories starting with
157 <option>GST_ELEMENT_</option> will be logged at <option>INFO</option> level.
161 To get all possible debug output, set
162 <envar>GST_DEBUG</envar>
163 to <option>*:5</option>