[FFmpeg-devel] [RFC] avpriv cleanup

wm4 nfxjfg at googlemail.com
Sun Mar 25 18:07:33 EEST 2018


On Sun, 25 Mar 2018 17:00:32 +0200
Michael Niedermayer <michael at niedermayer.cc> wrote:

> Hi all
> 
> Nicolas wrote an interresting comment about avpriv, and as this better
> belongs into a new thread, here it is in a new thread
> 
> On Sun, Mar 25, 2018 at 03:32:33PM +0200, Nicolas George wrote:
> > Josh de Kock (2018-03-23):  
> [...]
>      
> > You can observe just that by the fact that you needed to add an avpriv
> > function to let lavd communicate with lavf. Each time an avpriv function
> > appears, it shows there is something flawed in the design.  
> 
> If this is true, in general, then we can improve designs by removing
> avpriv_* functions ...
> 
> looking at what we have as avprivs, in the tree, i think some of these
> could be indeed usefull as public APIs. And we need to already keep them
> compatible as they are exported as avpriv too, so making such changes does
> indeed in some cases look like a good idea to me
> 
> There are some avprivs we have currently though that are quite specific
> to format intgernals, i dont think that its always a flaw to use avpriv
> functions thus
> 
> but i think we should evaluate each of the currently existing avpriv
> functions and check if the API wouldnt be usefull to user applications.
> And if it wouldnt be better to make it properly public

This might apply to some cases, but in general: just no.

We make things avpriv_ *because* we don't want them to be public API,
but the odd multiple-library design forces us to. Not more, not less.

What is this thread even for? If you want to make certain functions
public, post specific RFCs or patches. In general, we probably all
agree that avpriv functions are necessary hacks to deal with the split
library nonsense.


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