# The xine hacker's guide

### Günter Bartsch

### Heiko Schäfer

### Richard Wareham

### Miguel Freitas

### James Courtier-Dutton

### Siggi Langauf

### Marco Zühlke

### Mike Melanson

### Michael Roitzsch

Copyright © 2001-2003 the xine project team

This document should help xine hackers to find their way through xine's architecture and source code. It's a pretty free-form document containing a loose collection of articles describing various aspects of xine's internals.

# Chapter 1. Introduction

## Where am I?

You are currently looking at a piece of documentation for xine. xine is a free video player. It lives on http://xinehq.de/. Specifically this document goes under the moniker of the "xine Hackers' Guide".

## What does this text do?

This document should help xine hackers to find their way through xine's architecture and source code. It's a pretty free-form document containing a loose collection of articles describing various aspects of xine's internals. It has been written by a number of people who work on xine themselves and is intended to provide the important concepts and methods used within xine. Readers should not consider this document to be an exhausative description of the internals of xine. As with all projects which provide access, the source-code should be considered the definitive source of information.

## New versions of this document

This document is being developed in the xine-lib cvs repository within the directory `doc/hackersguide/`. If you are unsure what to do with the stuff in that directory, please read the `README` file located there.

New versions of this document can also be obtained from the xine web site: http://xinehq.de/.

## Feedback

All comments, error reports, additional information and criticism concerning this document should be directed to the xine documentations mailing list `<xine-docs@lists.sourceforge.net>`. Questions about xine hacking in general should be sent to the developer mailing list `<xine-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>`.

# Chapter 2. Using the xine library

## xine architecture as visible to libxine clients

The following drawing shows the components of xine as outside applications see them. For every component, the functions for creating and destroying it are given. Every other function works in the context it is enclosed in. Functions that facilitate the connection of the individual components are also given.

outside view on xine components

The function are named just to give you an overview of what is actually there. It is all thoroughly documented in the plublic header `xine.h`, which is the main and preferably the only xine header, clients should include. (xine/xineutils.h and the XML parser might make an exception.)

Details on the OSD feature can be found in the OSD section.

## Writing a new frontend to xine

The best way to explain this seems to be actual code. Below you will find a very easy and hopefully self-explaining xine frontend to give you a start.

One important thing to note is that any X11 based xine-lib frontend must call `XInitThreads()` before calling the first Xlib function, because xine will access the display from within a different thread than the frontend.

### Source code of a simple X11 frontend

    /*
    ** Copyright (C) 2003 Daniel Caujolle-Bert <segfault@club-internet.fr>
    **
    ** This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify
    ** it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
    ** the Free Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or
    ** (at your option) any later version.
    **
    ** This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
    ** but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
    ** MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the
    ** GNU General Public License for more details.
    **
    ** You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
    ** along with this program; if not, write to the Free Software
    ** Foundation, Inc., 59 Temple Place - Suite 330, Boston, MA 02111-1307, USA.
    **
    */

    /*
     * compile-command: "gcc -Wall -O2 `xine-config --cflags` `xine-config --libs` -L/usr/X11R6/lib -lX11 -lm -o  xinimin xinimin.c"
     */

    #include <stdio.h>
    #include <string.h>
    #include <math.h>

    #include <X11/X.h>
    #include <X11/Xlib.h>
    #include <X11/Xutil.h>
    #include <X11/keysym.h>
    #include <X11/Xatom.h>
    #include <X11/Xutil.h>
    #include <X11/extensions/XShm.h>

    #include <xine.h>
    #include <xine/xineutils.h>

    #define MWM_HINTS_DECORATIONS   (1L << 1)
    #define PROP_MWM_HINTS_ELEMENTS 5
    typedef struct {
      uint32_t  flags;
      uint32_t  functions;
      uint32_t  decorations;
      int32_t   input_mode;
      uint32_t  status;
    } MWMHints;

    static xine_t              *xine;
    static xine_stream_t       *stream;
    static xine_video_port_t   *vo_port;
    static xine_audio_port_t   *ao_port;
    static xine_event_queue_t  *event_queue;

    static Display             *display;
    static int                  screen;
    static Window               window[2];
    static int                  xpos, ypos, width, height, fullscreen;
    static double               pixel_aspect;

    static int                  running = 1;

    #define INPUT_MOTION (ExposureMask | ButtonPressMask | KeyPressMask | \
                          ButtonMotionMask | StructureNotifyMask |        \
                          PropertyChangeMask | PointerMotionMask)

    /* this will be called by xine, if it wants to know the target size of a frame */
    static void dest_size_cb(void *data, int video_width, int video_height, double video_pixel_aspect,
                             int *dest_width, int *dest_height, double *dest_pixel_aspect)  {
      *dest_width        = width;
      *dest_height       = height;
      *dest_pixel_aspect = pixel_aspect;
    }

    /* this will be called by xine when it's about to draw the frame */
    static void frame_output_cb(void *data, int video_width, int video_height,
                                double video_pixel_aspect, int *dest_x, int *dest_y,
                                int *dest_width, int *dest_height,
                                double *dest_pixel_aspect, int *win_x, int *win_y) {
      *dest_x            = 0;
      *dest_y            = 0;
      *win_x             = xpos;
      *win_y             = ypos;
      *dest_width        = width;
      *dest_height       = height;
      *dest_pixel_aspect = pixel_aspect;
    }

    static void event_listener(void *user_data, const xine_event_t *event) {
      switch(event->type) {
      case XINE_EVENT_UI_PLAYBACK_FINISHED:
        running = 0;
        break;

      case XINE_EVENT_PROGRESS:
        {
          xine_progress_data_t *pevent = (xine_progress_data_t *) event->data;

          printf("%s [%d%%]\n", pevent->description, pevent->percent);
        }
        break;

      /* you can handle a lot of other interesting events here */
      }
    }

    int main(int argc, char **argv) {
      char              configfile[2048];
      x11_visual_t      vis;
      double            res_h, res_v;
      char             *vo_driver = "auto";
      char             *ao_driver = "auto";
      char             *mrl = NULL;
      int               i;
      Atom              XA_NO_BORDER;
      MWMHints          mwmhints;

      /* parsing command line */
      for (i = 1; i < argc; i++) {
        if (strcmp(argv[i], "-vo") == 0) {
          vo_driver = argv[++i];
        }
        else if (strcmp(argv[i], "-ao") == 0) {
          ao_driver = argv[++i];
        }
        else
          mrl = argv[i];
      }

      if (!mrl) {
        printf("specify an mrl\n");
        return 1;
      }
      printf("mrl: '%s'\n", mrl);

      if (!XInitThreads()) {
        printf("XInitThreads() failed\n");
        return 1;
      }

      /* load xine config file and init xine */
      xine = xine_new();
      snprintf(configfile, sizeof(configfile), "%s%s", xine_get_homedir(), "/.xine/config");
      xine_config_load(xine, configfile);
      xine_init(xine);

      display = XOpenDisplay(NULL);
      screen  = XDefaultScreen(display);
      xpos    = 0;
      ypos    = 0;
      width   = 320;
      height  = 200;

      /* some initalization for the X11 Window we will be showing video in */
      XLockDisplay(display);
      fullscreen = 0;
      window[0] = XCreateSimpleWindow(display, XDefaultRootWindow(display),
                                      xpos, ypos, width, height, 1, 0, 0);

      window[1] = XCreateSimpleWindow(display, XDefaultRootWindow(display),
                                      0, 0, (DisplayWidth(display, screen)),
                                      (DisplayHeight(display, screen)), 0, 0, 0);

      XSelectInput(display, window[0], INPUT_MOTION);

      XSelectInput(display, window[1], INPUT_MOTION);

      XA_NO_BORDER         = XInternAtom(display, "_MOTIF_WM_HINTS", False);
      mwmhints.flags       = MWM_HINTS_DECORATIONS;
      mwmhints.decorations = 0;
      XChangeProperty(display, window[1],
                      XA_NO_BORDER, XA_NO_BORDER, 32, PropModeReplace, (unsigned char *) &mwmhints,
                      PROP_MWM_HINTS_ELEMENTS);

      XMapRaised(display, window[fullscreen]);

      res_h = (DisplayWidth(display, screen) * 1000 / DisplayWidthMM(display, screen));
      res_v = (DisplayHeight(display, screen) * 1000 / DisplayHeightMM(display, screen));
      XSync(display, False);
      XUnlockDisplay(display);

      /* filling in the xine visual struct */
      vis.display           = display;
      vis.screen            = screen;
      vis.d                 = window[fullscreen];
      vis.dest_size_cb      = dest_size_cb;
      vis.frame_output_cb   = frame_output_cb;
      vis.user_data         = NULL;
      pixel_aspect          = res_v / res_h;

      /* opening xine output ports */
      vo_port = xine_open_video_driver(xine, vo_driver, XINE_VISUAL_TYPE_X11, (void *)&vis);
      ao_port = xine_open_audio_driver(xine , ao_driver, NULL);

      /* open a xine stream connected to these ports */
      stream = xine_stream_new(xine, ao_port, vo_port);
      /* hook our event handler into the streams events */
      event_queue = xine_event_new_queue(stream);
      xine_event_create_listener_thread(event_queue, event_listener, NULL);

      /* make the video window visible to xine */
      xine_port_send_gui_data(vo_port, XINE_GUI_SEND_DRAWABLE_CHANGED, (void *) window[fullscreen]);
      xine_port_send_gui_data(vo_port, XINE_GUI_SEND_VIDEOWIN_VISIBLE, (void *) 1);

      /* start playback */
      if (!xine_open(stream, mrl) || !xine_play(stream, 0, 0)) {
        printf("Unable to open mrl '%s'\n", mrl);
        return 1;
      }

      while (running) {
        XEvent xevent;
        int    got_event;

        XLockDisplay(display);
        got_event = XPending(display);
        if( got_event )
          XNextEvent(display, &xevent);
        XUnlockDisplay(display);

        if( !got_event ) {
          xine_usec_sleep(20000);
          continue;
        }

        switch(xevent.type) {

        case KeyPress:
          {
            XKeyEvent  kevent;
            KeySym     ksym;
            char       kbuf[256];
            int        len;

            kevent = xevent.xkey;

            XLockDisplay(display);
            len = XLookupString(&kevent, kbuf, sizeof(kbuf), &ksym, NULL);
            XUnlockDisplay(display);

            switch (ksym) {

            case XK_q:
            case XK_Q:
              /* user pressed q => quit */
              running = 0;
              break;

            case XK_f:
            case XK_F:
              {
                /* user pressed f => toggle fullscreen */
                Window    tmp_win;

                XLockDisplay(display);
                XUnmapWindow(display, window[fullscreen]);
                fullscreen = !fullscreen;
                XMapRaised(display, window[fullscreen]);
                XSync(display, False);
                XTranslateCoordinates(display, window[fullscreen],
                                      DefaultRootWindow(display),
                                      0, 0, &xpos, &ypos, &tmp_win);
                XUnlockDisplay(display);

                xine_port_send_gui_data(vo_port, XINE_GUI_SEND_DRAWABLE_CHANGED,
                                        (void*) window[fullscreen]);
              }
              break;

            case XK_Up:
              /* cursor up => increase volume */
              xine_set_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_VOLUME,
                             (xine_get_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_VOLUME) + 1));
              break;

            case XK_Down:
              /* cursor down => decrease volume */
              xine_set_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_VOLUME,
                             (xine_get_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_VOLUME) - 1));
              break;

            case XK_plus:
              /* plus => next audio channel */
              xine_set_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_CHANNEL_LOGICAL,
                             (xine_get_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_CHANNEL_LOGICAL) + 1));
              break;

            case XK_minus:
              /* minus => previous audio channel */
              xine_set_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_CHANNEL_LOGICAL,
                             (xine_get_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_AUDIO_CHANNEL_LOGICAL) - 1));
              break;

            case XK_space:
              /* space => toggle pause mode */
              if (xine_get_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_SPEED) != XINE_SPEED_PAUSE)
                xine_set_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_SPEED, XINE_SPEED_PAUSE);
              else
                xine_set_param(stream, XINE_PARAM_SPEED, XINE_SPEED_NORMAL);
              break;

            }
          }
          break;

        case Expose:
          /* this handles (partial) occlusion of our video window */
          if (xevent.xexpose.count != 0)
            break;
          xine_port_send_gui_data(vo_port, XINE_GUI_SEND_EXPOSE_EVENT, &xevent);
          break;

        case ConfigureNotify:
          {
            XConfigureEvent *cev = (XConfigureEvent *) &xevent;
            Window           tmp_win;

            width  = cev->width;
            height = cev->height;

            if ((cev->x == 0) && (cev->y == 0)) {
              XLockDisplay(display);
              XTranslateCoordinates(display, cev->window,
                                    DefaultRootWindow(cev->display),
                                    0, 0, &xpos, &ypos, &tmp_win);
              XUnlockDisplay(display);
            } else {
              xpos = cev->x;
              ypos = cev->y;
            }
          }
          break;

        }
      }

      /* cleanup */
      xine_close(stream);
      xine_event_dispose_queue(event_queue);
      xine_dispose(stream);
      xine_close_audio_driver(xine, ao_port);
      xine_close_video_driver(xine, vo_port);
      xine_exit(xine);

      XLockDisplay(display);
      XUnmapWindow(display, window[fullscreen]);
      XDestroyWindow(display, window[0]);
      XDestroyWindow(display, window[1]);
      XUnlockDisplay(display);

      XCloseDisplay (display);

      return 0;
    }

# Chapter 3. xine code overview

## Walking the source tree

The `src/` directory in xine-lib contains several modules, this should give you a quick overview on where to find what sources.

Directories marked with "(imported)" contain code that is copied from an external project into xine-lib. Everything below such a directory is up to this project. When modifying code there, be sure to send the patches on. If some xine specific adaptation of the code is absolutely necessary, a patch containing the changes should be stored in Mercurial to not lose the changes the next time we sync with the external project.

`audio_out`

  Audio output plugins. These provide a thin abstraction layer around different types of audio output architectures or platforms. Basically an audio output plugin provides functions to query and setup the audio hardware and output audio data (e.g. PCM samples).

`demuxers`

  Demuxer plugins that handle various system layer file formats like avi, asf or mpeg. The ideal demuxer know nothing about where the data comes from and who decodes it. It should basically just unpack it into chunks the rest of the engine can eat.

`dxr3`

  Code to support the DXR3 / hollywood+ hardware mpeg decoder.

`input`

  Input plugins encapsulate the origin of the data. Data sources like ordinary files, DVDs, CDA or streaming media are handled here.

  `dvb`

    Some headers for Digital Video Broadcast.

  `libdvdnav` (imported)

    The libdvdnav library for DVD navigation is used by xine's DVD input plugin.

  `libreal`, `librtsp`

    Support for RealMedia streaming as used by the RTSP input plugin.

  `vcd`

    The enhanced VCD input plugin which also handles VCD navigation.

    `libcdio`, `libvcd` (imported)

      Libraries used by the enhanced VCD plugin.

`liba52` (imported)

  A52 (aka AC3, aka Dolby Digital) audio decoder library and xine plugin.

  We maintain some small integration improving differences between the original liba52 and our copy in the file `diff_against_release.patch`.

`libdts` (imported)

  AC5 (aka DTS) audio decoder library and xine plugin, which is capable of software decoding as well as digital passthrough.

`libfaad` (imported)

  The Free AAC Decoder library and xine plugin.

`libffmpeg`

  A xine decoder plugin using various audio and video decoders from the ffmpeg decoder pack libavcodec. Their MPEG encoder is also for the DXR3.

  To optimize the integration of libavcodec and the xine engine, we maintain some differences between the original ffmpeg and our copy in the file `diff_to_ffmpeg_cvs.txt`.

  `libavcodec` (imported)

    The libavcodec decoder pack as used by xine's ffmpeg plugin.

`libflac`

  A xine demuxer and decoder plugin for the Free Lossless Audio Codec library, which has to be installed separately.

`liblpcm`

  Audio decoder plugin that "decodes" raw PCM data; most notably endianess-conversions are done here.

`libmad` (imported)

  Mpeg audio decoder plugin (i.e. mp2 and mp3 decoding). ISO/IEC compliant decoder using fixed point math.

`libmpeg2` (imported)

  Most important MPEG video decoder plugin, provides fast and high-precision MPEG-1/2 video decoding.

  Although this is an imported library, we have heavily modified our internal copy to blend it as seamlessly as possible into the xine engine in order to get the maximum MPEG decoding performance.

`libmpeg2new`

  James started an effort to bring a recent and unmodified version of libmpeg2 into xine to one day replace our current internal modified libmpeg2 with one closer to the original. But since the full feature catalog has not yet been achieved with the new one, it is still disabled.

  `include`, `libmpeg2` (imported)

    The code of the imported new libmpeg2.

`libreal`

  A thin wrapper around Real's binary codecs from the Linux RealPlayer to use them as a xine plugin.

`libspeex`

  A xine decoder plugin for the speex library, which has to be installed separately.

`libspucc`

  Closed caption subtitle decoder plugin.

`libspudec`

  DVD SPU subtitle decoder plugin.

`libsputext`

  Plain text subtitle decoder plugins.

`libtheora`

  A xine decoder plugin for the theora library, which has to be installed separately.

`libvorbis`

  A xine decoder plugin for the ogg/vorbis library, which has to be installed separately.

`libw32dll`

  Video and audio decoder plugins that exploit some wine code to use win32 (media player and Quicktime) codecs in xine. Works on x86 platforms only.

  `DirectShow`, `dmo`, `qtx`, `wine` (imported)

    Stripped down version of wine to support Video for Windows DLLs and additional code to use DirectShow, DMO and QuickTime DLLs.

`libxineadec`

  xine's decoder pack of additional audio decoders.

  `gsm610` (imported)

    The gsm610 audio decoder library as used by the related xine plugin.

  `nosefart` (imported)

    The nosefart audio decoder library as used by the related xine plugin.

`libxinevdec`

  xine's decoder pack of additional video decoders.

`post`

  Video and audio post effect plugins live here. Post plugins modify streams of video frames or audio buffers as they leave the decoder to provide conversion or effects.

  `audio`

    Some audio effects as xine audio filter posts.

  `deinterlace` (imported)

    The tvtime deinterlacer as a xine video filter post.

  `goom` (imported)

    The goom audio visualizer as a xine visualizer post.

  `mosaico`

    Some post plugins merging multiple frames into one. For example picture in picture can be done with this.

  `planar`

    Some simple 2D video effects as xine video filter posts.

  `visualizations`

    Audio visualization post plugins.

`video_out`

  Contains various video output driver plugins. Video output drivers are thin abstraction layers over various video output platforms (e.g. X11, directfb, directX,...). Video output driver plugins provide functions like frame allocation and drawing and handle stuff like hardware acceleration, scaling and colorspace conversion if necessary. They do not handle a/v sync since this is done in the xine-engine already.

  `libdha` (imported)

    A library for direct hardware access to the graphics card as used by the vidix video out plugin.

  `vidix` (imported)

    The vidix system for high performance video output as used by the vidix video out plugin.

`xine-engine`

  The heart of xine - it's engine. Contains code to load and handle all the plugins, the configuration repository as well as the generic decoding loops and code for synchronized output. A lot of helper functions for plugins to use live here as well. What's in the individual files should be guessable by the files' names. This document is not going to explain the source, because it simply changes too often. A look at the architectural drawing in the internals section should give you a pretty good idea, what to expect in this directory. Basically, everything in this picture that is not called "plugin" lives here.

`xine-utils`

  Collection of utility functions and platform abstractions. Also contains a simple XML parser for frontend playlist handling.

## Object oriented programming in C

xine uses a lot of design principles normally found in object oriented designs. As xine is written in C, a few basic principles shall be explained here on how xine is object oriented anyway.

Classes are structs containing function pointers and public member data. Example:

       typedef struct my_stack_s my_class_t;

       struct my_stack_s {
         /* method "push" with one parameter and no return value */
         void (*push)(my_stack_t *this, int i);

         /* method "add" with no parameters and no return value */
         void (*add)(my_stack_t *this);

         /* method "pop" with no parameters (except "this") and a return value */
         int (*pop) (my_stack_t *this);
       };

       /* constructor */
       my_class_t *new_my_stack(void);

To derive from such a class, private member variables can be added:

       typedef struct {
         my_stack_t    stack; /* public part */

         /* private part follows here */
         int           values[MAX_STACK_SIZE];
         int           stack_size;
       } intstack_t;

Each method is implemented as a static method (static to prevent namespace pollution). The "this" pointer needs to be cast to the private pointer type to gain access to the private member variables.

Implementation of the "push" method follows:

       static void push (my_stack_t *this_gen, int i) {
         intstack_t *this = (intstack_t *)this_gen;
         this->values[MAX_STACK_SIZE - ++this->stack_size] = i;
       }

The part added to the derived class is private, because when defining the new structure directly in the .c file, where it will be used, outside modules have no way of seeing the definition of the derived class. A public derivation is possible by defining the above structure in a .h file for others to include.

Something similar to a protected, package or friend visibility is also possible:

       struct my_stack_s {
         void (*push)(my_stack_t *this, int i);
         void (*add)(my_stack_t *this);
         int  (*pop)(my_stack_t *this);

       #ifdef STACK_INTERNAL
         void (*flush)(my_stack_t *this);
       #endif
       };

All modules, who need to access the internal part have to add

       #define STACK_INTERNAL

before including the header with the definition. It is clear that only those friend modules can derive from this class.

Finally the contructor malloc()s the data struct (private variant) and fills in function pointers and default values. Usually the constructor is the only public (i.e. non-static) function in the module:

       my_stack_t *new_my_stack(void) {
         intstack_t *this;

         /* alloc memory */
         this = malloc(sizeof(intstack_t));

         /* fill in methods */
         this->push = push;
         this->add  = add;
         this->pop  = pop;

         /* init data fields */
         this->stack_size = 0;

         /* return public part */
         return &this->stack;
       }

### Why not using C++?

After all these considerations about object oriented C, you might ask, why we do not use C++ after all? The easy answer would be: xine wants to be as fast as possible and C++ is simply too slow. But this is only the easy answer and it is not entirely true any more. Thoughtfully applied, you can write very fast C++ code with today's compilers, but these compilers might not be available on all platforms in the necessary quality. Even with a sophisticated compiler, C++ is much harder to optimize than plain C and thus C compiles much faster. Another big problem is that the C++ ABI is not as well-defined as the C ABI. With C, you can easily mix libraries and applications built by different compilers. With C++, this is unlikely to work. But the final argument is that xine does not really need C++. xine's inheritance hierarchy is very flat, mostly one level only and does not need things like multiple or virtual inheritance. Most of the external projects that are used by xine are plain C as well and using more than one language complicates the build system. As we saw above, we can emulate object orientation reduced to our real needs in plain C.

## Coding style and guidelines

This section contains some guidelines for writing xine-code. These are really just guidelines, no strict rules. Contributions will not be rejected if they do not meet these rules but they will be even more appreciated if they do.

- Comment your interfaces directly in the header files. No doxygen comments, ordinary C comments will do.

- Use C-style comments (/* */), not C++-style (//).

- When in doubt, use lower case. BTW: This thing is called xine, never Xine.

- Use expressive variable and function identifiers on all public interfaces. Use underscores to seperate words in identifiers, not uppercase letters (my_function_name is ok, myFunctionName is not ok).

- Avoid macros unless they are really useful. Avoid gotos.

- use something like

         printf("module: ..."[,...]);

  for console output. All console output goes to stdout and must be prefixed by the module name which generates the output (see example above).

- Refer to emac's C-mode for all questions of proper indentiation. That first of all means: indent with two spaces.

## The xine logging system

xine offers a wide range of possibilities to display strings. This section should describe when to use which way and how to do it right.

### xine_log

Output which is done thru this function will be displayed for the end user by the frontend. If `xine->verbosity` is not 0 the messages will also be displayed on the console. Ideally these strings are translated. This function is for information which the user should read always.

       xine_log(xine_t *xine, int buf, const char *format, ...);

`buf` is either XINE_LOG_MSG for general messages or XINE_LOG_PLUGIN for messages about plugins.

### xprintf

This macro uses the `xine->verbosity` value to decide if the string should be printed to the console. Possible values are XINE_VERBOSITY_NONE, XINE_VERBOSITY_LOG or XINE_VERBOSITY_DEBUG. By default nothing is printed. When you use xine-ui you can enable this output with the `--verbose=[1,2]` options. This function should be used for information which the user should only read up on request.

       xprintf(xine_t *xine, int verbosity, const char *format, ...);

### lprintf/llprintf

These macros are for debugging purpose only. Under normal circumstances it is disabled. And can only be enabled by changing a define statement and a recompilation. It has to be enabled for these files that are of interest. It should only be used for information which is intended for developers.

       lprintf(const char *format, ...);
       llprintf(bool, const char *format, ...);

`bool` is a flag which enables or disables this logging.

`lprintf` can be enabled by defining LOG at the top of the source file. `llprintf` can be used for more than one categorie per file by using diffent lables:

       #define LOG_LOAD 1
       #define LOG_SAVE 0

       llprintf(LOG_LOAD, "loading was successful\n");
       llprintf(LOG_SAVE, "could not save to file %s\n", filename);

In this case only the first messages is printed. To enable/disable change the defines.

LOG_MODULE should be used to set the modulename for xprintf/lprintf/llprintf. Each output line will start with "modulename: ".

       #define LOG_MODULE "modulename"

LOG_VERBOSE can be defined to enable the logging of functionname and linenumbers. Then the output will be: "modulename: (function_name:42) message".

### _x_assert/_x_abort

These are not purely logging functions, but despite their original C library versions, they always output debugging text, which is why usage of these functions is preferred.

`_x_assert()` checks a condition and prints a note, when the condition is false. In addition, a debug build and only a debug build will terminate the application, when the condition is false. Release versions will only print the note, but try to continue.

`_x_abort()` always terminates the application after printing a note.

## How to contribute

Make sure you send your patches in unified diff format to the xine-devel mailing list. You'll have to subscribe first, otherwise you're not allowed to post. Please do not send patches to individual developers unless instructed otherwise because your patch is more likely to get lost in an overfull INBOX in that case. Please be patient, it may take 1-2 weeks before you hear any comments on your work (developers may be working on other parts of the code or are simply busy at the moment).

# Chapter 4. xine internals

## Engine architecture and data flow

xine engine architecture

Media streams usually consist of audio and video data multiplexed into one bitstream in the so-called system-layer (e.g. AVI, Quicktime or MPEG). A demuxer plugin is used to parse the system layer and extract audio and video packages. The demuxer uses an input plugin to read the data and stores it in pre-allocated buffers from the global buffer pool. The buffers are then added to the audio or video stream fifo.

From the other end of these fifos the audio and video decoder threads consume the buffers and hand them over to the current audio or video decoder plugin for decompression. These plugins then send the decoded data to the output layer. The buffer holding the encoded data is no longer needed and thus released to the global buffer pool.

In the output layer, the video frames and audio samples pass through a post plugin tree, which can apply effects or other operations to the data. When reaching the output loops, frames and samples are enqueued to be displayed, when the presentation time has arrived.

A set of extra information travels with the data. Starting at the input and demuxer level, where this information is generated, the data is attached to the buffers as they wait in the fifo. The decoder loops copy the data to a storage of their own. From there, every frame and audio buffer leaving the stream layer is tagged with the data the decoder loop storage currently holds.

## Plugin system

The plugin system enables some of xine's most valuable features:

- drop-in extensiability

- support parallel installation of multiple (incompatible) libxine versions

- support for multiple plugin directories (`$prefix/lib/xine/plugins`, `$HOME/.xine/plugins`, ...)

- support for recursive plugin directories (plugins are found even in subdirectories of the plugin directories)

- version management (On start, xine finds all plugins in its plugin (sub)directories and chooses an appropriate version (usually the newest) for each plugin.)

- simplification (Plugins don't have to follow any special naming convention, and any plugin may contain an arbitrary subset of input, demuxer, decoder or output plugins.)

Essentally, plugins are just shared objects, ie dynamic libraries. In contrast to normal dynamic libraries, they are stored outside of the system's library PATHs and libxine does its own bookkeeping, which enables most advanced features mentioned above.

### Plugin location and filesystem layout

The primary goal for this new plugin mechanism was the need to support simultaneous installation of several (most likely incompatible) libxine versions without them overwriting each other's plugins. Therefore, we have this simple layout:

Plugins are installed below XINE_PLUGINDIR (`/usr/local/lib/xine/plugins` by default). Note that plugins are never directly installed into XINE_PLUGINDIR. Instead, a separate subdirectory is created for each "plugin provider". A plugin provider is equivalent with the exact version of one source package. Typical examples include "xine-lib-0.9.11" or "xine-vcdnav-1.0". Every source package is free to install an arbitrary number of plugins in its own, private directory. If a package installs several plugins, they may optionally be organized further into subdirectories.

So you will finally end up with something like this:

       /usr/local/lib/xine/plugins
         xine-lib-0.9.11
             demux_mpeg_block.so
             decode_mpeg.so
             video_out_xv.so
             ...
         xine-vcdnav-0.9.11
             input_vcdnav.so
         xine-lib-1.2
             input
                 file.so
                 stdin_fifo.so
                 vcd.so
             demuxers
                 fli.so
                 avi.so
                 ...
             decoders
                 ffmpeg.so
                 mpeg.so (may contain mpeg 1/2 audio and video decoders)
                 pcm.so
                 ...
             output
                 video_xv.so
                 audio_oss.so
                 ...
         xine-lib-3.0
                 avi.so (avi demuxer)
                 mpeg.so (contains mpeg demuxers and audio/video decoders)
                 video_out_xv.so (Xv video out)
                 ...

As you can see, every package is free to organize plugins at will below its own plugin provider directory. Additionally, administrators may choose to put plugins directly into XINE_PLUGINDIR, or in a "local" subdirectory. Users may wish to put additional plugins in ~/.xine/plugins/. Again, there may be subdirectories to help organize the plugins.

The default value for XINE_PLUGINDIR can be obtained using the xine-config --plugindir command.

### Plugin Content: What's inside the .so?

Each plugin library (.so file) contains an arbitrary number of (virtual) plugins. Typically, it will contain exactly one plugin. However, it may be useful to put a set of related plugins in one library, so they can share common code.

First of all, what is a virtual plugin? A virtual plugin is essentially a structure that is defined by the xine engine. This structure typically contains lots of function pointers to the actual API functions. For each plugin API, there are several API versions, and each API version may specify a new, incompatible structure. Therefore, it is essential that only those plugins are loaded that support current libxine's API, so the .so file needs a plugin list that provides libxine with the version information, even before it tries to load any of the plugins.

This plugin list is held in an array named `xine_plugin_info`":

       plugin_info_t xine_plugin_info[] = {
         /* type, API, "name", version, special_info, init_function */
         { PLUGIN_DEMUX, 20, "flac", XINE_VERSION_CODE, NULL, demux_flac_init_class },
         { PLUGIN_AUDIO_DECODER, 13, "flacdec", XINE_VERSION_CODE, &dec_info_audio, init_plugin },
         { PLUGIN_NONE, 0, "", 0, NULL, NULL }
       };

The structure of xine_plugin_info may never be changed. If it ever needs to be changed, it must be renamed to avoid erraneous loading of incompatible plugins.

`xine_plugin_info` can contain any number of plugins and must be terminated with a PLUGIN_NONE entry. Available plugin types are:

       #define PLUGIN_NONE           0
       #define PLUGIN_INPUT          1
       #define PLUGIN_DEMUX          2
       #define PLUGIN_AUDIO_DECODER  3
       #define PLUGIN_VIDEO_DECODER  4
       #define PLUGIN_SPU_DECODER    5
       #define PLUGIN_AUDIO_OUT      6
       #define PLUGIN_VIDEO_OUT      7
       #define PLUGIN_POST           8

The plugin version number is generated from xine-lib's version number like this: MAJOR * 10000 + MINOR * 100 + SUBMINOR. This is not required, but it's an easy way to ensure that the version increases for every release.

Every entry in `xine_plugin_info` has an initialization function for the plugin class context. This function returns a pointer to freshly allocated (typically via `malloc()`) structure containing mainly function pointers; these are the "methods" of the plugin class.

The "plugin class" is not what we call to do the job yet (like decoding a video or something), it must be instantiated. One reason for having the class is to hold any global settings that must be accessed by every instance. Remember that xine library is multistream capable: multible videos can be decoded at the same time, thus several instances of the same plugin are possible.

If you think this is pretty much an object-oriented aproach, then you're right.

A fictitious file input plugin that supports input plugin API 12 and 13, found in xine-lib 2.13.7 would then define this plugin list:

       #include <xine/plugin.h>
       ...
       plugin_t *init_api12(void) {
         input_plugin_t *this;

         this = malloc(sizeof(input_plugin_t));
         ...
         return (plugin_t *)this;
       }
       /* same thing, with different initialization for API 13 */

       const plugin_info_t xine_plugin_info[] = {
         { PLUGIN_INPUT, 12, "file", 21307, init_api12 },
         { PLUGIN_INPUT, 13, "file", 21307, init_api13 },
         { PLUGIN_NONE, 0, "", 0, NULL }
       }

This input plugin supports two APIs, other plugins might provide a mixture of demuxer and decoder plugins that belong together somehow (ie. share common code).

You'll find exact definitions of public functions and plugin structs in the appropriate header files for each plugin type: `input/input_plugin.h` for input plugins, `demuxers/demux.h` for demuxer plugins, `xine-engine/video_decoder.h` for video decoder plugins, `xine-engine/audio_decoder.h` for audio decoder plugins, `xine-engine/post.h` for post plugins, `xine-engine/video_out.h` for video out plugins, `xine-engine/audio_out.h` for audio out plugins. Additional information will also be given in the dedicated sections below.

Many plugins will need some additional "private" data fields. These should be simply added at the end of the plugin structure. For example a demuxer plugin called "foo" with two private fields "xine" and "count" may have a plugin structure declared in the following way:

       typedef struct {
         /* public fields "inherited" from demux.h */
         demux_plugin_t    demux_plugin;

         xine_t           *xine;
         int               count;
       } demux_foo_t;

The plugin would then access public members via the `demux_plugin` field and private fields directly.

Summary: Plugins consist of two C-style classes, each representing a different context.

- The first is the so called "plugin class" context. This is a singleton context, which means it will exist either not at all or at most once per xine context. This plugin class context is a C-style class which is subclassing the related class from the xine plugin headers. This contains functions, which are independent of the actual instance of the plugin. Most prominently, it contains a factory method to instantiate the next context.

- The second context is the instance context. This is another C-style class, which is constructed and disposed withing the plugin class context. This one does the actual work and subclasses the related plugin struct from the xine plugin headers. It is instantiated for every separate running instance of the plugin

## What is this metronom thingy?

Metronom serves two purposes:

- Generate vpts (virtual presentation time stamps) from pts (presentation time stamps) for a/v output and synchronization.

- Provide a master clock (system clock reference, scr), possibly provided by external scr plugins (this can be used if some hardware decoder or network server dictates the time).

pts/vpts values are given in 1/90000 sec units. pts values in mpeg streams may wrap (that is, return to zero or any other value without further notice), can be missing on some frames or (for broken streams) may "dance" around the correct values. Metronom therefore has some heuristics built-in to generate clean vpts values which can then be used in the output layers to schedule audio/video output.

The heuristics used in metronom have always been a field of research. Current metronom's implementation tries to stick to pts values as reported from demuxers, that is, vpts may be obtained by a simple operation of vpts = pts + `vpts_offset`, where `vpts_offset` takes into account any wraps. Whenever pts is zero, metronom will estimate vpts based on previous values. If a difference is found between the estimated and calculated vpts values by above formula, it will be smoothed by using a "drift correction".

## How does xine synchronize audio and video?

Every image frame or audio buffer leaving decoder is tagged by metronom with a vpts information. This will tell video_out and audio_out threads when that data should be presented. Usually there isn't a significative delay associated with video driver, so we expect it to get on screen at the time it's delivered for drawing. Unfortunately the same isn't true for audio: all sound systems implement some amount of buffering (or fifo), any data being send to it now will only get played some time in future. audio_out thread must take this into account for making perfect A-V sync by asking the sound latency to audio driver.

Some audio drivers can't tell the current delay introduced in playback. This is especially true for most sound servers like ESD or aRts and explain why in such cases the sync is far from perfect.

Another problem xine must handle is the sound card clock drift. vpts are compared to the system clock (or even to a different clock provided by a scr plugin) for presentation but sound card is sampling audio by it's own clocking mechanism, so a small drift may occur. As the playback goes on this error will accumulate possibly resulting in audio gaps or audio drops. To avoid that annoying effect, two countermeasures are available (switchable with xine config option `audio.synchronization.av_sync_method`):

- The small sound card errors are feedbacked to metronom. The details are given by `audio_out.c` comments:

         /* By adding gap errors (difference between reported and expected
          * sound card clock) into metronom's vpts_offset we can use its
          * smoothing algorithms to correct sound card clock drifts.
          * obs: previously this error was added to xine scr.
          *
          * audio buf ---> metronom --> audio fifo --> (buf->vpts - hw_vpts)
          *           (vpts_offset + error)                     gap
          *                    <---------- control --------------|
          *
          * Unfortunately audio fifo adds a large delay to our closed loop.
          *
          * These are designed to avoid updating the metronom too fast.
          * - it will only be updated 1 time per second (so it has a chance of
          *   distributing the error for several frames).
          * - it will only be updated 2 times for the whole audio fifo size
          *   length (so the control will wait to see the feedback effect)
          * - each update will be of gap/SYNC_GAP_RATE.
          *
          * Sound card clock correction can only provide smooth playback for
          * errors < 1% nominal rate. For bigger errors (bad streams) audio
          * buffers may be dropped or gaps filled with silence.
          */

- The audio is stretched or squeezed a slight bit by resampling, thus compensating the drift: The next comment in `audio_out.c` explains:

         /* Alternative for metronom feedback: fix sound card clock drift
          * by resampling all audio data, so that the sound card keeps in
          * sync with the system clock. This may help, if one uses a DXR3/H+
          * decoder board. Those have their own clock (which serves as xine's
          * master clock) and can only operate at fixed frame rates (if you
          * want smooth playback). Resampling then avoids A/V sync problems,
          * gaps filled with 0-frames and jerky video playback due to different
          * clock speeds of the sound card and DXR3/H+.
          */

## Overlays and OSD

The roots of xine overlay capabilities are DVD subpictures and subtitles support (also known as 'spu'). The DVD subtitles are encoded in a RLE (Run Length Encoding - the most simple compressing technique) format, with a palette of colors and transparency levels. You probably thought that subtitles were just simple text saved into DVDs, right? Wrong, they are bitmaps.

In order to optimize to the most common case, xine's internal format for screen overlays is a similar representation to the 'spu' data. This brings not only performance benefit (since blending functions may skip large image areas due to RLE) but also compatibility: it's possible to reencode any xine overlay to the original spu format for displaying with mpeg hardware decoders like DXR3.

Displaying subtitles requires the ability to sync them to the video stream. This is done using the same kind of pts/vpts stuff of a-v sync code. DVD subtitles, for example, may request: show this spu at pts1 and hide it at pts2. This brings the concept of the 'video overlay manager', that is a event-driven module for managing overlay's showing and hiding.

The drawback of using internal RLE format is the difficulty in manipulating it as graphic. To overcome that we created the 'OSD renderer', where OSD stands for On Screen Display just like in TV sets. The osd renderer is a module providing simple graphic primitives (lines, rectagles, draw text etc) over a "virtual" bitmap area. Everytime we want to show that bitmap it will be RLE encoded and sent to the overlay manager for displaying.

overlays architecture

### Overlay Manager

The overlay manager interface is available to any xine plugin. It's a bit unlikely to be used directly, anyway here's a code snippet for enqueueing an overlay for displaying:

       video_overlay_event_t       event;

       event.object.handle = this->video_overlay->get_handle(this->video_overlay,0);

       memset(this->event.object.overlay, 0, sizeof(*this->event.object.overlay));

       /* set position and size for this overlay */
       event.object.overlay->x = 0;
       event.object.overlay->y = 0;
       event.object.overlay->width = 100;
       event.object.overlay->height = 100;

       /* clipping region is mostly used by dvd menus for highlighting buttons */
       event.object.overlay->clip_top    = 0;
       event.object.overlay->clip_bottom = image_height;
       event.object.overlay->clip_left   = 0;
       event.object.overlay->clip_right  = image_width;

       /* the hard part: provide a RLE image */
       event.object.overlay->rle = your_rle;
       event.object.overlay->data_size = your_size;
       event.object.overlay->num_rle = your_rle_count;

       /* palette must contain YUV values for each color index */
       memcpy(event.object.overlay->clip_color, color, sizeof(color));

       /* this table contains transparency levels for each color index.
          0 = completely transparent, 15 - completely opaque */
       memcpy(event.object.overlay->clip_trans, trans, sizeof(trans));

       /* set the event type and time for displaying */
       event.event_type = EVENT_SHOW_SPU;
       event.vpts = 0; /* zero is a special vpts value, it means 'now' */
       video_overlay->add_event(video_overlay, &event);

### OSD Renderer

OSD is a general API for rendering stuff over playing video. It's available both to xine plugins and to frontends.

The first thing you need is to allocate a OSD object for drawing from the renderer. The code below allocates a 300x200 area. This size can't be changed during the lifetime of a OSD object, but it's possible to place it anywhere over the image.

       osd_object_t osd;

       osd = this->osd_renderer->new_object(osd_renderer, 300, 200);

Now we may want to set font and color for text rendering. Although we will refer to fonts over this document, in fact the OSD can be any kind of bitmap. Font files are searched and loaded during initialization from `$prefix/share/xine/fonts/` and `~/.xine/fonts`. There's a sample utility to convert truetype fonts at `xine-lib/misc/xine-fontconv.c`. Palette may be manipulated directly, however most of the time it's convenient to use pre-defined text palettes.

       /* set sans serif 24 font */
       osd_renderer->set_font(osd, "sans", 24);

       /* copy pre-defined colors for white, black border, transparent background to
          starting at the index used by the first text palette */
       osd_renderer->set_text_palette(osd, TEXTPALETTE_WHITE_BLACK_TRANSPARENT, OSD_TEXT1);

       /* copy pre-defined colors for white, no border, translucid background to
          starting at the index used by the second text palette */
       osd_renderer->set_text_palette(osd, TEXTPALETTE_WHITE_NONE_TRANSLUCID, OSD_TEXT2);

Now render the text and show it:

       osd_renderer->render_text(osd, 0, 0, "white text, black border", OSD_TEXT1);
       osd_renderer->render_text(osd, 0, 30, "white text, no border", OSD_TEXT2);

       osd_renderer->show(osd, 0); /* 0 stands for 'now' */

There's a 1:1 mapping between OSD objects and overlays, therefore the second time you send an OSD object for displaying it will actually substitute the first image. By using set_position() function we can move overlay over the video.

       for( i=0; i < 100; i+=10 ) {
         osd_renderer->set_position(osd, i, i );
         osd_renderer->show(osd, 0);
         sleep(1);
       }
       osd_renderer->hide(osd, 0);

For additional functions please check osd.h or the public header.

#### OSD palette notes

The palette functions demand some additional explanation, skip this if you just want to write text fast without worring with details! :)

We have a 256-entry palette, each one defining yuv and transparency levels. Although xine fonts are bitmaps and may use any index they want, we have defined a small convention:

       /*
        Palette entries as used by osd fonts:

        0: not used by font, always transparent
        1: font background, usually transparent, may be used to implement
           translucid boxes where the font will be printed.
        2-5: transition between background and border (usually only alpha
             value changes).
        6: font border. if the font is to be displayed without border this
           will probably be adjusted to font background or near.
        7-9: transition between border and foreground
        10: font color (foreground)
       */

The so called 'transitions' are used to implement font anti-aliasing. That convention requires that any font file must use only the colors from 1 to 10. When we use the set_text_palette() function we are just copying 11 palette entries to the specified base index.

That base index is the same we pass to render_text() function to use the text palette. With this scheme is possible to have several diferent text colors at the same time and also draw fonts over custom background.

       /* obtains size the text will occupy */
       renderer->get_text_size(osd, text, &width, &height);

       /* draws a box using font background color (translucid) */
       renderer->filled_rect(osd, x1, y1, x1+width, y1+height, OSD_TEXT2 + 1);

       /* render text */
       renderer->render_text(osd, x1, y1, text, OSD_TEXT2);

#### OSD text and palette FAQ

Q: What is the format of the color palette entries?

A: It's the same as used by overlay blending code (YUV).

Q: What is the relation between a text palette and a palette I set with xine_osd_set_palette?

A: xine_osd_set_palette will set the entire 256 color palette to be used when we blend the osd image. "text palette" is a sequence of 11 colors from palette to be used to render text. that is, by calling osd_render_text() with color_base=100 will render text using colors 100-110.

Q: Can I render text with colors in my own palette?

A: Sure. Just pass the color_base to osd_render_text()

Q: Has a text palette change effects on already drawed text?

A: osd_set_text_palette() will overwrite some colors on palette with pre-defined ones. So yes, it will change the color on already drawed text (if you do it before calling osd_show, of course). If you don't want to change the colors of drawed text just use different color_base values.

Q: What about the shadows of osd-objects? Can I turn them off or are they hardcoded?

A: osd objects have no shadows by itself, but fonts use 11 colors to produce an anti-aliased effect. if you set a "text palette" with entries 0-9 being transparent and 10 being foreground you will get rid of any borders or anti-aliasing.

## MRLs

This section defines a draft for a syntactic specification of MRLs as used by xine-lib. The language of MRLs is designed to be a true subset of the language of URIs as given in RFC2396. A type 2 grammar for the language of MRLs is given in EBNF below.

Semantically, MRLs consist of two distinct parts that are evaluated by different components of the xine architecture. The first part, derivable from the symbol <input_source> in the given grammar, is completely handed to the input plugins, with input plugins signaling if they can handle the MRL.

The second part, derivable from <stream_setup> and delimited from the first by a crosshatch ('#') contains parameters that modify the initialization and playback behaviour of the stream to which the MRL is passed. The possible parameters are mentioned in the manpage to xine-ui.

The following definition should be regarded as a guideline only. Of course any given input plugin only understands a subset of all possible MRLs. On the other hand, invalid MRLs according to this definition might be understood for convenience reasons. Some user awareness is required at this point.

EBNF grammar for MRLs:

       <mrl>           ::= <input_source>[#<stream_setup>]
       <input_source>  ::= (<absolute_mrl>|<relative_mrl>)
       <absolute_mrl>  ::= <input>:(<hierarch_part>|<opaque_part>)
       <hierarch_part> ::= (<net_path>|<abs_path>)[?<query>]
       <opaque_part>   ::= (<unreserved>|<escaped>|;|?|:|@|&|=|+|$|,){<mrl_char>}
       <relative_mrl>  ::= (<abs_path>|<rel_path>)
       <net_path>      ::= //<authority>[<abs_path>]
       <abs_path>      ::= /<path_segments>
       <rel_path>      ::= <rel_segment>[<abs_path>]
       <rel_segment>   ::= <rel_char>{<rel_char>}
       <rel_char>      ::= (<unreserved>|<escaped>|;|@|&|=|+|$|,)
       <input>         ::= <alpha>{(<alpha>|<digit>|+|-|.)}
       <authority>     ::= (<server>|<reg_name>)
       <server>        ::= [[<userinfo>@]<host>[:<port>]]
       <userinfo>      ::= {(<unreserved>|<escaped>|;|:|&|=|+|$|,)}
       <host>          ::= (<hostname>|<ipv4_address>|<ipv6_reference>)
       <hostname>      ::= {<domainlabel>.}<toplabel>[.]
       <domainlabel>   ::= (<alphanum>|<alphanum>{(<alphanum>|-)}<alphanum>)
       <toplabel>      ::= (<alpha>|<alpha>{(<alphanum>|-)}<alphanum>)
       <ipv4_address>  ::= <digit>{<digit>}.<digit>{<digit>}.<digit>{<digit>}.<digit>{<digit>}
       <port>          ::= {<digit>}
       <reg_name>      ::= <reg_char>{<reg_char>}
       <reg_char>      ::= (<unreserved>|<escaped>|;|:|@|&|=|+|$|,)
       <path_segments> ::= <segment>{/<segment>}
       <segment>       ::= {<path_char>}{;<param>}
       <param>         ::= {<path_char>}
       <path_char>     ::= (<unreserved>|<escaped>|:|@|&|=|+|$|,)
       <query>         ::= {<mrl_char>}
       <stream_setup>  ::= <stream_option>;{<stream_option>}
       <stream_option> ::= (<configoption>|<engine_option>|novideo|noaudio|nospu)
       <configoption>  ::= <configentry>:<configvalue>
       <configentry>   ::= <unreserved>{<unreserved>}
       <configvalue>   ::= <stream_char>{<stream_char>}
       <engine_option> ::= <unreserved>{<unreserved>}:<stream_char>{<stream_char>}
       <stream_char>   ::= (<unreserved>|<escaped>|:|@|&|=|+|$|,)
       <mrl_char>      ::= (<reserved>|<unreserved>|<escaped>)
       <reserved>      ::= (;|/|?|:|@|&|=|+|$|,|[|])
       <unreserved>    ::= (<alphanum>|<mark>)
       <mark>          ::= (-|_|.|!|~|*|'|(|))
       <escaped>       ::= %<hex><hex>
       <hex>           ::= (<digit>|A|B|C|D|E|F|a|b|c|d|e|f)
       <alphanum>      ::= (<alpha>|<digit>)
       <alpha>         ::= (<lowalpha>|<upalpha>)
       <lowalpha>      ::= (a|b|c|d|e|f|g|h|i|j|k|l|m|n|o|p|q|r|s|t|u|v|w|x|y|z)
       <upalpha>       ::= (A|B|C|D|E|F|G|H|I|J|K|L|M|N|O|P|Q|R|S|T|U|V|W|X|Y|Z)
       <digit>         ::= (0|1|2|3|4|5|6|7|8|9)

With <ipv6_reference> being an IPv6 address enclosed in [ and ] as defined in RFC2732.

# Chapter 5. xine's stream layer

## Input layer

Many media players expect streams to be stored within files on some local medium. In actual fact, media may be streamed over a network (e.g. via HTTP or RTP), encoded onto a specialized medium (e.g. DVD), etc. To allow you to access all this media, xine supports the concept of an "input plugin". The tasks performed by an input plugin are:

- Validation of Media Resource Locators (MRLs).

- MRL specific session management (e.g. opening and closing local files).

- Reading blocks/specific numbers of bytes from the input device.

In addition to these tasks, the input plugin may keep track of some input device-specific state information (e.g. a DVD plugin may keep track of navigational state data such as current title/chapter).

There are two classes of input device which xine recognizes. Byte-oriented devices can, upon request, return an arbitary non-zero number of bytes from a stream. Examples of such devices are files or network streams. Block-oriented devices, however, have a prefered block or "frame"-size. An example of such a device is a DVD where data is stored in logical blocks of 2048 bytes. One may pass the hint to xine that the plugin is block-oriented by setting the INPUT_CAP_BLOCK capability. Note that this is only a hint and xine does not guarantee that all requests to the plugin will be purely block based.

### Writing a xine input plugin

An input plugin provides API functions which allow the engine to access the data source the plugin encapsulates. The input plugin API is declared in `input/input_plugin.h`.

An input plugin exports a public function of the form:

       void *input_init_plugin(xine_t *xine, void *data);

This function initializes an input plugin class object with the following functions:

       char *get_description(input_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a plaintext, one-line string describing the plugin.

       char *get_identifier(input_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a shorter identifier describing the plugin.

       xine_mrl_t **get_dir(input_class_t *this_gen, const char *filename, int *nFiles);

Retrieves a directory listing from the plugin. This function is optional.

       char **get_autoplay_list(input_class_t *this_gen, int *num_files);

Retrieves the autoplay playlist from the plugin. This function is optional.

       int eject_media(input_class_t *this_gen);

Ejects the medium. This function is optional.

       void dispose(input_class_t *this_gen);

This function frees the memory used by the input plugin class object.

       input_plugin_t *get_instance(input_class_t *class_gen, xine_stream_t *stream, const char *mrl);

The plugin should try, if it can handle the specified MRL and return an instance of itself if so. If not, NULL should be returned. When a new MRL is to be played, xine engine asks all the available input plugins one by one if they can handle the MRL. Note that input plugins are not guaranteed to be queried in any particular order and the first input plugin to claim an MRL gets control so try not to duplicate MRLs already found within xine.

       int open(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

You should do any device-specific initialisation within this function.

       uint32_t get_capabilities(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

Returns a bit mask describing the input device's capabilities. You may logically OR the `INPUT_CAP_*` constants together to get a suitable bit-mask (via the '|' operator).

       off_t read(input_plugin_t *this_gen, char *buf, off_t nlen);

Reads a specified number of bytes into a buffer and returns the number of bytes actually copied.

       buf_element_t *read_block(input_plugin_t *this_gen, fifo_buffer_t *fifo, off_t len);

Should the input plugin set the block-oriented hint and if the demuxer supports it, this function will be called to read a block directly into a xine buffer from the buffer pool.

       off_t seek(input_plugin_t *this_gen, off_t offset, int origin);

This function is called by xine when it is required that subsequent reads come from another part of the stream.

       off_t get_current_pos(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

Returns the current position within a finite length stream.

       off_t get_length(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

Similarly this function returns the length of the stream.

       uint32_t get_blocksize(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

Returns the device's prefered block-size if applicable.

       char *get_mrl(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

Returns the current MRL.

       int get_optional_data(input_plugin_t *this_gen, void *data, int data_type);

This function allows the input to advertise extra information that is not available through other API functions. See `INPUT_OPTIONAL_*` defines.

       void dispose(input_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function closes all resources and frees the input_plugin_t object.

## Demuxer layer

This section is designed to familiarize a programmer with general demuxer concepts and how they apply to the xine multimedia library.

### Introduction to demuxer theory

xine's demuxer layer is responsible for taking apart multimedia files or streams so that the engine can decode them and present them to the user. "Demuxer" is short for demultiplexor, which is the opposite of multiplexing. This refers to the process of combining 2 or more things into one. Multimedia streams usually, at a minimum, multiplex an audio stream and a video stream together into one stream. Sometimes, there are multiple audio streams (e.g., for multiple language tracks). Sometimes, there is a subtitle data stream multiplexed into the multimedia stream.

There are many different multimedia formats in existence and there are varying strategies for demuxing different types of multimedia files. Formats in the MPEG family, for example, are designed to allow easy playback from almost any place within the file. Many formats cannot deal with this circumstance and at least need to be demuxed from the beginning of the stream and played through to the end. Some formats, such as MPEG and AVI, have marker information before every chunk in the stream. Other formats, such as Apple Quicktime, are required to have a master index that contains all information for taking apart a file. Many game-oriented multimedia formats are designed strictly for playing from start to finish without any regard to random seeking within the file.

### Input considerations

A xine demuxer interacts with xine's input layer in order to receive data. The underlying input plugin might be a file, a network stream, or a block-oriented disc storage device like a DVD. A file input offers the most flexibility in being able to read either blocks of data or individual bytes, and being able to seek freely. Other input plugins may not allow the demuxer to seek (such as stdin or certain network streams). Some input plugins only allow the demuxer to read blocks of data and not individual bytes (such as the CD-DA input plugin). The demuxer needs to check the capabilities of the underlying input plugin before attempting to seek around.

### Seeking Policy

If possible, it is desirable that a demuxer can seek randomly through the stream. This is easier for some file formats and essentially impossible for other formats. xine's seeking API function allows a seek target to be specified in terms of a ratio from 0 to 65535, or time in milliseconds from 0. Time-based seeking is useful for specifying, e.g., a 1-minute jump forward or backward in a stream. With the ratio-based seeking, the demuxer can interpret the ratio value in the domain he sees most fit. This can also be some sort of time or a simple file offset.

If a multimedia stream has video, there generally needs to be a way to identify keyframes in the stream in order to facilitate seeking. Many game-oriented formats fall over in this area as they carry no keyframe information aside from the implicit assumption that the first frame is a keyframe.

In a stream with video, a seek operation should always jump to a keyframe. xine Policy: When the seek target is between 2 keyframes, jump to the earlier keyframe. E.g., if there are keyframes at stream offsets 10000 and 20000, and the user requests a seek to offset 18000, choose the keyframe at offset 10000.

Note that there can be difficulties when the audio and video streams are not tightly interleaved. In many formats, the audio frames are several time units ahead of the video frames for the purpose of pre-buffering. This is a typical scenario in the middle of a stream:

       audio frame @ time 10
       video frame @ time 8
       audio frame @ time 11
       video frame @ time 9
       audio frame @ time 12
          keyframe @ time 10
       audio frame @ time 13

If the demuxer seeks to the keyframe @ time 10, the next audio chunk will have a timestamp of 13, which is well ahead of where the video is. While the xine engine will eventually recover, it will make playback choppy for a few seconds after the seek. One strategy for dealing with this situation is to seek back to the nearest keyframe before the requested seek and then seek back to find the audio frame with the nearest timestamp before the keyframe. In this example, that would mean seeking back to [af@time 10]. Then, demux the chunks in order, but skip the video frames until the next keyframe is encountered.

### Writing a xine demuxer

A demuxer plugin provides API functions which allow the engine to initialize demuxing, dispatch data chunks to the engine, seek within the stream, get the stream length, among other functions. The demuxer API is declared in `demuxers/demux.h`.

Writing a new xine demuxer is largely a process of using other demuxers as references and understanding how they interact with the engine. This section will give a brief overview of each API function.

A demuxer plugin exports a public function of the form:

       void *demux_wc3movie_init_plugin(xine_t *xine, void *data);

This function initializes a demuxer plugin class object with 6 demuxer-specific functions. These functions mainly provide information that a frontend can use to build user-friendly features. These functions include:

       char *get_description(demux_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a plaintext, one-line string describing the plugin.

       char *get_identifier(demux_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a shorter identifier describing the plugin.

       char *get_extensions(demux_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a string with the file extensions that this demuxer is known to use. For example, Microsoft .WAV files use "wav". If there are multiple known extensions, separate each extension with a space. For example, Apple Quicktime has the extensions "mov qt mp4".

       char *get_mimetypes(demux_class_t *this_gen)

This function returns a string with the MIME types that this demuxer is known to use. Multiple MIME type specifications should be separated with a semicolon (;). For example, Apple Quicktime uses several MIME types:

       return "video/quicktime: mov,qt: Quicktime animation;"
              "video/x-quicktime: mov,qt: Quicktime animation;"
              "application/x-quicktimeplayer: qtl: Quicktime list;";

       void class_dispose(demux_class_t *this_gen);

This function frees the memory used by the demuxer plugin class object.

       demux_plugin_t *open_plugin(demux_class_t *class_gen, xine_stream_t *stream, input_plugin_t *input_gen);

This function is invoked by the xine engine to determine if the demuxer is able to handle a particular multimedia stream. The engine can specify if the demuxer is supposed to check the stream by content (validate the actual stream data and see if it is of the expected type), by extension (check the name of the MRL and see if the file extension is correct), or explicitly (the engine is passing on a user request to force this demuxer to be used).

The order in which the engine queries the available demuxers is determined by the priority stated in the demuxer_info_t, which is attached to every demuxer's plugin info structure. Demuxers with higher priority values are called before those with lower priority. The order amongst demuxers of equal priority is undefined. The idea behind this is to have the demuxers for high-level container formats have high priorities, while the raw format demuxers have low priorities. This way, a stream of a high-level container format with a beginning that happens to look like a low-level raw format is still handled by the correct demuxer, because it is queried first.

NOTE: In the course of checking the stream by content, care must be taken not to consume bytes out of a non-seekable stream. If the stream is non-seekable, use the input plugin's preview buffer facility to get a cache of the first few bytes. If the stream is seekable, reset the stream before operating on the data (you do not know where some other demuxer left the stream positioned).

If the demuxer can handle the stream, it creates a new demux_plugin_t structure and initializes the main demuxer functions which are called by the engine to do the tough demuxing duty. These functions include:

       void demux_send_headers(demux_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function generally reads the headers of the stream, does whatever it has to do to figure out what audio and video codecs are used in the file, and asks the xine engine to initialize the correct decoders with the proper parameters (like width and height for video, sample rate and channels for audio).

       int demux_send_chunk(demux_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function reads data from the stream and sends it to the appropriate decoder. This is where the bulk of the demuxing work is performed. Despite the name, the function is actually free to send as much data as it wants to, or as much as it can. A good policy is to send an entire chunk of compressed audio or video data and then return. The chunk is likely large enough that it will have to be broken up into multiple xine buffers. If a chunk of audio is 20000 bytes large, and the engine is returning 4096-byte buffers, send 4 full buffers and 1 partial buffer to the audio decoder and then return.

       int demux_seek(demux_plugin_t *this_gen, off_t start_pos, int start_time, int playing);

This function is called by the engine to request stream repositioning. This function should be implemented if possible. See the section on "Seeking Policy" for more information. A seek operation should reposition the demuxer's internal accounting variables to be ready to start dispatching chunks from the new position when the xine engine calls demux_send_chunk() again. If seeking is not feasible, the function quietly returns and the demuxer's position is unaffected.

       void demux_dispose(demux_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function frees the demux_plugin_t object.

       int demux_get_status(demux_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function returns the current internal status of the demuxer. There are 2 states: DEMUX_OK, for when the demuxer is demuxing or ready to demux, and DEMUX_FINISHED, for when the demuxer has reached the end of the stream or has encountered some sort of error.

       int demux_get_stream_length(demux_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function returns the length (time duration) of the stream in milliseconds. If the length of the stream cannot be determined, return 0.

       uint32_t demux_get_capabilities(demux_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function returns an array of bit flags indicating special features of the demuxer. See `DEMUX_CAP_*` defines.

       int demux_get_optional_data(demux_plugin_t *this_gen, void *data, int data_type);

This function allows the demuxer to advertise extra information that is not available through other API functions. See `DEMUX_OPTIONAL_*` defines.

### Buffer types

Demuxer must send data to decoders using two fifos names `video_fifo` and `audio_fifo`. Both are available at `stream` level. The following code fragment shows how it's done.

       buf_element_t *buf;

       buf = stream->video_fifo->buffer_pool_alloc(stream->video_fifo);
       buf->type = BUF_CONTROL_START;
       stream->video_fifo->put(stream->video_fifo, buf);

Buffers must have set the `type` field as shown. All buffer types are defined in `xine-engine/buffer.h`.

The control buffer types are very important and must be sent by all kinds of demuxers. They tell decoders to start/stop their operations and inform metronom about discontinuities, either relative or absolute. There is also a reset buffer type that must be sent when demuxers are seeking as a "warm restart" indication to the decoders.

To help finding out buffer types for known codecs, functions from `buffer_types.c` may be used to convert "FOURCC" codes or audio format tags (as used in AVI files) to the xine byffer type:

       buf->type = fourcc_to_buf_video((void*)this->avi->bih.biCompression);

## Decoder layer

This section is designed to familiarize a programmer with basic audio and video decoding concepts and how they apply to the xine decoder API.

### Audio and video decoders

Audio and video data requires an enormous amount of storage. Thus, the raw data is encoded using a variety of compression techniques which drastically reduces the amount of space required to transmit and store the data. Before playback, the compressed data needs to be decoded.

The process of decoding data is rather straightforward in a computer science sense: An array of encoded data is fed into a decoder and the decoder outputs an array of decoded data which is ready to be presented to the user (either displayed on the screen or played through the speakers).

### Video output formats

Raw video data comes in a variety of formats, most commonly in RGB and YUV. xine's output layer currently only accepts data in YV12 format (a.k.a. YUV 4:2:0 planar) or YUY2 format (a.k.a. YUV 4:2:2 packed). If the output format is a RGB space, the data must be converted to an acceptable YUV format before being dispatched to the video output unit. xine has a number of support functions to facilitate converting RGB to YUV.

### Audio output formats

Raw audio data equates to uncompressed PCM audio. xine's audio output modules expect 8-bit PCM data to be unsigned and 16-bit PCM data to be signed and in little endian format. When there is more than one channel, the channel data is interleaved. For example, stereo data is interleaved as left sample, right sample: LRLRLRLR. If there are 4 or 6 channels, the same interleaving applies: 123456123456.

### Writing a xine decoder

Writing a new xine decoder for an audio or video format entails accumulating a buffer of encoded data, performing the necessary operations for decoding and then passing it on the appropriate output module. The best reference for understanding the decoder API is the various decoding modules available. In particular, xine has example video and audio decoders named `src/libxinevdec/foovideo.c` and `src/libxineadec/fooaudio.c`, respectively.

This section will give a brief overview of each API function. The decoder API is declared in `src/xine-engine/video_decoder.h` and `src/xine-engine/audio_decoder.h`.

A decoder plugin must, like every plugin, export a public array of plugin_info_t types. The array usually has 2 entries: The first contains the plugin information regarding the decoder and the second entry is a terminating NULL entry. However, there may be more entries. Each entry contains 6 fields:

- `plugin type`: Either PLUGIN_VIDEO_DECODER or PLUGIN_AUDIO_DECODER.

- `API`: The plugin API revision that this plugin adheres to.

- `name`: A character string that identifies the plugin.

- `version`: #define'd as XINE_VERSION_CODE.

- `supported types`: A structure that defines the buffer types that this plugin can handle.

- `init function`: The function that the xine engine calls in order to initialize this decoder plugin.

The supported types field is a decoder_info_t structure. This struct combines a list of buffer types that the plugin can handle, along with a relative default priority. The priority allows xine to have multiple plugins that can handle one data type and the plugin with the highest priority takes precedence. The code defines the default priority, which can be overriden by the user. The list of buffer types is an array of uint32_t types from the list of buffer types defined in `src/xine-engine/buffer.h`.

       void *init_plugin(xine_t *xine, void *data);

This function allocates a plugin class and initializes a set of functions for the xine engine to invoke. These functions include:

       char *get_identifier(video_decoder_class_t *this);

       char *get_identifier(audio_decoder_class_t *this);

This function returns a brief character string identifying the plugin.

       char *get_description(video_decoder_class_t *this);

       char *get_description(audio_decoder_class_t *this);

This function returns a slightly longer description of the plugin.

       void dispose_class(video_decoder_class_t *this);

       void dispose_class(audio_decoder_class_t *this);

This function frees the resources allocated by the plugin class.

       video_decoder_t *open_plugin(video_decoder_class_t *class_gen, xine_stream_t *stream);

       audio_decoder_t *open_plugin(audio_decoder_class_t *class_gen, xine_stream_t *stream);

This function initializes the decoder plugin's private state. It also initializes and returns either an audio_decoder_t or a video_decoder_t for the engine. The decoder_t contains a number of functions that the plugin invokes to handle data decoding. These functions include:

       void decode_data(video_decoder_t *this_gen, buf_element_t *buf);

       void decode_data(audio_decoder_t *this_gen, buf_element_t *buf);

This function performs the bulk of the decoding work. The xine engine delivers buffers (xine_buffer_t data types) to this function and it is up to this function to assemble the parts of the buffer, decode the data, and send the decoded data to the proper output unit. The constraint is that you must never call a port function of the output port when the port has not been opened by you. (See the `open()` and `close()` functions of xine_video_port_t and xine_audio_port_t.)

A buffer has a `decoder_flags` field which can have a number of flags set. The first buffer that a decoder receives ought to have the BUF_FLAG_HEADER flag set. This indicates that the buffer content contains the essential setup information for decoding (width, height, etc. for video; sample rate, channels, etc. for audio).

If the BUF_FLAG_HEADER flag is not set, the content of the buffer should be accumulated in a private buffer until a buffer with a BUF_FLAG_FRAME_END flag is set. This indicates that the entire chunk has been transmitted to the decoder and is ready to be decoded. Fetch either an empty video frame or audio buffer from the appropriate output unit. Perform the appropriate decoding operations and set the pts for the output buffer (and the duration, a.k.a. video_step, for video). Dispatch the decoded data to the output and reset the internal buffer accumulation accounting.

       void flush(video_decoder_t *this_gen);

       void flush(audio_decoder_t *this_gen);

This function is called when either the xine engine flushes the stream, e.g., after a seek operation or when decoding runs too slow and frames arrive in the output loops fast enough. Decoders should release everything they have already decoded, drop the rest and wait for new input.

       void reset(video_decoder_t *this_gen);

       void reset(audio_decoder_t *this_gen);

This function is called when the xine engine resets the stream. Decoders should get ready to receive data that has nothing to do with the one it worked on up to now.

       void discontinuity(video_decoder_t *this_gen);

       void discontinuity(audio_decoder_t *this_gen);

This function is called when the xine engine encounters a pts discontinuity. Decoders should forget all timestamping information they might have accumulated from the stream to not confuse metronom.

       void dispose(video_decoder_t *this_gen);

       void dispose(audio_decoder_t *this_gen);

This function frees the resources used by the decoder plugin.

### SPU decoder

A lot written above also applies for subpicture unit (SPU) decoders. The SPU decoder API is declared in `src/xine-engine/spu_decoder.h`. Details on the data, SPU decoders are expected to output, see the section on overlays and OSD.

However, there are some differences to consider. At first, unlike audio and video, subtitles do not form a continuous stream. The decoder will therefore only be called once in a while. The metronom call for timestamping, which for audio and video is done by the engine, has to be done manually for SPU:

       vpts = metronom->got_spu_packet(metronom, buf->pts);

Another difference is that while both audio and video decoders are automatically blocked in their `get_buffer()`/`get_frame()` methods when the output cannot take any more data, this does not work for SPU, because it could take minutes before the next free slot becomes available and we must not block the decoder thread for that long since it might be shared with a video decoder. But when a SPU decoder does not share the thread and we let it run without any blocking, it will overflow the available overlay slots very soon. Since SPU decoders should not have to know, whether they share the thread or not, a helper function `_x_spu_decoder_sleep()` is provided, which, when told the timestamp of the next overlay, will wait long enough to not overflow the overlay slots, but short enough to not hinder a video decoder in the same thread.

There are also two functions in the SPU decoder API, which have not been discussed above:

       int get_interact_info(spu_decoder_t *this_gen, void *data);

Since SPUs are sometimes (on DVDs for example) used for user interaction like menu highlights, this function can be called to get `data` filled with the current interaction information. The caller and the decoder have to agree on what this is exactly. With DVDs, you can get a copy of the current NAV packet here.

       void set_button(spu_decoder_t *this_gen, int32_t button, int32_t mode);

Also for interaction, you can ask the decoder here to change the current highlighting.

# Chapter 6. xine's output layer

## Post plugin layer

In this section you will learn, how the powerful post plugin architecture works and how to write post plugins.

### General principle of post plugins

The name "post plugin" comes from "postprocessing" which already describes what these plugins are supposed to do: they take video frames, audio buffers or subpicture planes as they leave the decoders and apply arbitrary processing to them. Then they pass processed elements on to the output loops. Post plugins can not only be chained to process the predecessor's output and advance the data to their successor, they can form arbitrary trees, since post plugins can have any number of inputs and outputs. Additionally, the interconnection of the plugins currently inserted in such a tree can be changed on the fly during playback. The public function `xine_post_wire()` is used by frontends to form such connections.

Due to the variety of possible applications, the interface post plugins have to implement is just the basic foundation. The complexity comes from hooking your post plugin into the engine data paths for video frames and audio buffers, intercepting the data and performing your operation on them. This is done by taking the interface of a video or audio port, replacing some of the functions with your own ones and passing the interface to the decoder or predecessor post plugin that is going to feed you with data by accessing this interface and by doing that, calling the functions you provide. From there you can do almost anything you want. Constructing video frames from audio buffers to visualize sound is possible as well as just outputting an integer giving the average brightness of an image. It is also possible to invent post plugins with no output (not very useful, unless the plugin has some side-effect) or no input at all; for the latter you have to create your own pthread, otherwise your plugin will not do anything. An audio signal generator could be implemented like this. The various data types, post plugins can accept as input or offer as output are defined in `xine.h` as `XINE_POST_DATA_*` defines.

Some terminology used in the following explanations:

- `down direction`: The direction from the decoders to the output. This is the way video or audio data (actual content and meta information) usually travels through the engine.

- `up direction`: The direction from the output to the decoders. This is the way some video or audio metadata like metronom timestamps travel through the engine.

- `interception`: Post plugins are inserted into the engine data paths by the means of the decorator design pattern. This works by taking engine structures with member funtions like video or audio ports, video frames or overlay managers and inserting your own functions into a copy of this structure. This is called interception. This modified structure is then passed up to the plugin that uses it and thus calls your replaced functions.

### Writing a xine post plugin

The post plugin API is declared in `src/xine-engine/post.h` The plugin info of post plugins contains the post plugin type, which is one of the `XINE_POST_TYPE_*` defines and the init_class function of the plugin.

       post_plugin_t *open_plugin(post_class_t *class_gen, int inputs, xine_audio_port_t **audio_target, xine_video_port_t **video_target);

Returns an instance of the plugin. Some post plugins evaluate `inputs` to open a variable number of inputs. Since almost all post plugins have audio or video outputs, you can hand in a NULL-terminated array of ports to connect to these outputs. In this function you can also intercept these ports so that your plugin is actually used. There is a helper function to initialize a post_plugin_t, which you are encouraged to use: `_x_post_init()`.

       char *get_identifier(post_class_t *class_gen);

This function returns a short identifier describing the plugin.

       char *get_description(post_class_t *class_gen);

This function returns a plaintext, one-line string describing the plugin.

       void dispose(post_class_t *class_gen);

This function frees the memory used by the video out plugin class object.

The post_plugin_t structure contains the publicly visible part of the post plugin with the audio and video inputs and the type of the post plugin. Not publicly visible are the lists of all inputs and outputs, the `dispose()` function and some internal stuff which plugins do not have to worry about.

       void dispose(post_plugin_t *this_gen);

This function frees the memory used by the plugin instance, but not necessarily immediately. Since post plugins enter their own functions into engine structures, they might still be needed when `dispose()` is being called. They maintain a usage counter to detect that. To check for such a condition, you should use the `_x_post_dispose()` helper function like that:

       if (_x_post_dispose(this))
         really_free(this);

`_x_post_dispose()` frees any ressources allocated by any of the post plugin helper functions and returns boolean true, if the plugin is not needed any more.

### Interception

Currently, we have four engine structures which can be intercepted by post plugins: video ports, video frames, overlay managers and audio ports. You could do this interception manually, but since this is quite a complex process, there are helper functions to assist you and their usage is encouraged.

#### Intercepting a video port

       post_video_port_t *_x_post_intercept_video_port(post_plugin_t *post,
         xine_video_port_t *port, post_in_t **input, post_out_t **output);

This function will intercept `port` and returns a structure for you to pass up. All functions in the port will be replaced with dummy pass through functions that do nothing but relaying the call down to the original port. If you want (that is, `input` or `output` are not NULL), this function will also create the input and output descriptors complete with rewiring functions and add them to the relevant lists. This is required, if you want this port to be advertised by the plugin to the outside world.

post_video_port_t makes a variety of interception schemes very easy. If you want to replace any of the default functions with your own, just enter it into `new_port`. You can use `original_port` from within your function to propagate calls down to the original port. The constraint is that your functions have to ensure that every original port held open scores one usage counter point, so that opened ports are always closed before the plugin is disposed. Therefore, you should use the macro `_x_post_inc_usage()` before calling `original_port->open()` and use the macro `_x_post_dec_usage()` after calling `original_port->close()`. Note that `_x_post_dec_usage()` might dispose the plugin, when `dispose()` has been called earlier and usage count drops to zero, so do never touch plugin structures after `_x_post_dec_usage()`. In addition, you must never call a port function of the original port when the port is not open.

Intercepting video frames or the overlay manager of the port is even easier. You do not have to reimplement `get_frame()` or `get_overlay_manager()`. Just enter a `intercept_frame` or `intercept_ovl` function which returns boolean true, if you want to intercept. The functions to insert in the intercepted frame or overlay manager are taken from `new_frame` and `new_manager` respectively. Note that the defaults are reversed: If you do not enter such a decision function for either one, all frames and no overlay manager will be intercepted.

For convenience post_video_port_t also contains pointers to the current stream and to the current post plugin and a user_data pointer, where you can put in anything you need in addition. If your port is used by more than one thread, you can also enforce locking on the port, frame or overlay manager level by entering a lock into `port_lock`, `frame_lock` or `manager_lock` respectively.

#### Intercepting an audio port

Audio port interception is just a stripped down version of video port interception. Everything related to frames and overlay manager is not needed and audio buffers do not need to be intercepted, since they have no member functions. Everything else of the above still applies.

#### Intercepting overlay manager

       void _x_post_intercept_overlay_manager(video_overlay_manager_t *original, post_video_port_t *port);

Interception of the overlay manager is done automatically when your `intercept_ovl()` decision function returns boolean true. Should you ever decide not to use that, interception can be done with this helper function, which simply creates an intercepted overlay manager with dummy pass through functions in `port->new_manager` and stores the original manager in `port->original_manager`.

No matter how you intercepted the overlay manager, your own replacement functions will receive `port->new_manager` as the overlay manager argument. But you most likely want to have access to the post_video_port_t from within your functions. For that, there exists a pointer retrieval function:

       post_video_port_t *_x_post_ovl_manager_to_port(video_overlay_manager_t *manager);

#### Intercepting a video frame

       vo_frame_t *_x_post_intercept_video_frame(vo_frame_t *frame, post_video_port_t *port);
       vo_frame_t *_x_post_restore_video_frame(vo_frame_t *frame, post_video_port_t *port);

Interception of video frames is done automatically when your `intercept_frame()` decision function returns boolean true or when there is no such function in post_video_port_t. Should you ever decide not to use that, interception can be done with the helper function `_x_post_intercept_video_frame()`.

Since the same video frame can be in use in the decoder and in the output and in any post plugin in between at the same time, simply modifying the frame structure does not work, because every user of the frame needs to see his version and the frame must always travel along the same path through the plugins for its entire lifetime. To ensure that, `_x_post_intercept_video_frame()` provides a shallow copy of the frame structure with the original frame attached to `copy->next`. This copy will be filled with your own frame functions from `port->new_frame` and with dummy pass through functions for those you did not provide. This way, every part of xine using this frame will see its own frame structure with a list of frame contexts from down the data path attached to `frame->next`. `_x_post_restore_video_frame()` reverses this and should be used when the frame is freed or disposed.

Your own replacement functions will receive the copied frame as as argument. But you most likely want to have access to the post_video_port_t from within your functions. For that, there exists a pointer retrieval function:

       post_video_port_t *_x_post_video_frame_to_port(vo_frame_t *frame);

The constraint is that your functions have to ensure that every intercepted frame scores one usage counter point, so that these frames are always freed or disposed before the plugin is disposed. Therefore, you should use the macro `_x_post_inc_usage()` before calling `_x_post_intercept_video_frame()` and use the macro `_x_post_dec_usage()` after calling `_x_post_restore_video_frame()`. Note that `_x_post_dec_usage()` might dispose the plugin, when `dispose()` has been called earlier and usage count drops to zero, so do never touch plugin structures after `_x_post_dec_usage()`.

From within your own frame functions, you can propagate calls to the original frame by calling a function on `frame->next`. Since modifications to the frame can travel both upwards and downwards (decoders and output can modify the frame), changes need to be copied between the frame structure contexts. You should use the `_x_post_frame_copy_down()` and `_x_post_frame_copy_up()` helper functions like that:

       _x_post_frame_copy_down(frame, frame->next);
       frame->next->draw(frame->next, stream);
       _x_post_frame_copy_up(frame, frame->next);

If your post plugin modifies the content of the frame, you have to modify a deep copy of the frame, because the decoder might still use the frame as a reference frame for future decoding. The usual procedure is:

       modified_frame = port->original_port->get_frame(port->original_port, ...);
       _x_post_frame_copy_down(frame, modified_frame);
       copy_and_modify(frame, modified_frame);
       skip = modified_frame->draw(modified_frame, stream);
       _x_post_frame_copy_up(frame, modified_frame);
       modified_frame->free(modified_frame);

When the output receives a frame via `draw()`, it usually receives the stream where the frame originates as well and modifies the state of this stream by passing the frame through the stream's metronom. Sometimes this is unwanted. For example, when you pass the same frame to the output more than once, it will confuse metronom. To solve this, you can call `frame->next->draw()` with NULL as the stream. You might also want to prevent frames from being passed down to the output completely, because your post plugin creates something else from these frames, but does not need them to be drawn. In both these situations, you have to call the helper function `_x_post_frame_u_turn()` when the frame is drawn, because this does some housekeeping which the decoder might expect to take place.

The following diagram summarizes the situations of a video frame passing through a post plugin:

video frame passing through a post plugin

#### Summary of constraints

- Call `_x_post_inc_usage()` before port `open()` before any other port function.

- Call `_x_post_inc_usage()` before issueing an intercepted frame.

- Call `_x_post_dec_usage()` after port `close()` and do not call any port functions after that.

- Call `_x_post_dec_usage()` after restoring a frame.

- When a frame is drawn by your plugin, it must either be drawn on the original port with the correct stream as argument or U-turned (or passed through a private metronom manually).

- If your post plugin keeps locked frames, release them when your input port is being closed.

- Do not assume your plugin is alive after `_x_post_dec_usage()`.

### Rewiring and the ticket system

Rewiring is the reconnection of one post plugin's outputs and another post plugin's inputs. This can happen on the fly during playback, which makes this a very delicate process. In one such input to output connection, only the output is active by either writing data directly to the connected input or by calling functions there. Therefore we have to notify only the output, when it is rewired. This is done by calling the `rewire()` member function of the corresponding xine_post_out_t when the frontend issues a rewiring on this output. This is done from the frontend thread for the rewire operation to return synchroneously. But since this can happen on the fly, we have to assure that no other thread is relying on the connection while we modify it. For this, threads working within post plugins have to be accounted and on demand suspended in safe positions. For this, xine offers a synchronization facility called "tickets".

#### Ticket system principles and operations

The idea of the ticket system is based on an extended read-write lock, where there can be many readers in parallel, but only one exclusive writer. A certain interface might require you to have a ticket before calling its functions. The ticket system now allows multiple threads to operate within the component behind the interface by granting as many tickets as needed. But should an outside operation require exclusive access to the component, all granted tickets can be revoked and have to be given back by the threads who hold them, which suspends the threads. After the exclusive operation, tickets will be reissued so all suspended threads can continue where they stopped. We will now look at the ticket primitives in detail:

`acquire()`

  You receive a new ticket. If the ticket is currently revoked, you can be blocked until it is reissued. There is one exception to this: You can acquire a revoked ticket, if you revoked it atomic yourself. You can also acquire a ticket irrevocably. Between acquire and release of an irrevocable ticket, it is guaranteed that you will not be blocked by ticket revocation.

`release()`

  You give a ticket back when you do not need it any longer. If the ticket is currently revoked, you can be blocked until it is reissued. If you acquired the ticket irrevocably, you have to release it irrevocably as well.

`renew()`

  You must only call this function, when the ticket has been revoked, so be sure to check `ticket_revoked` before. You give the ticket back and receive a new one. In between, you can be blocked until the ticket is reissued. You have to renew irrevocably, if you cannot assure that the thread holds no irrevocable tickets. If you can assure this, renew revocably.

`revoke()`

  This function can only be called by the xine engine, plugins do not have access to it. It revokes all tickets and after finite time, all threads will run into a `acquire()`, `release()` or `renew()` and will be suspended there. Then the revocation returns and you can modify structures or call functions with the knowledge that all ticket holders will remain in safe positions. When you additionally need exclusive access where no other revoker can interfere, you have to revoke atomic.

`issue()`

  This function can only be called by the xine engine, plugins do not have access to it. It ends ticket revocation and hands out new tickets to all threads that applied with a `acquire()` or `renew()`. If you revoked the tickets atomic, you have to issue them atomic.

When you use the ticket system in any way, you have to obey to the following rules:

- Assure to release irrevocable tickets ater a finite time.

- Assure to release or renew revocable tickets ater a finite time.

- Assure to reissue tickets you revoked atomic after a finite time.

- Pair calls properly.

- Never revoke a ticket you hold.

- Never acquire a ticket you revoked atomic before.

- Never acquire a ticket revocable more than once.

#### Ticket handling in decoder and post plugins

The contract of the video and audio port interfaces is that you need to have the port ticket, when you want to call functions of these interfaces. The decoder plugins do not have to worry about this at all, since the decoder loops inside the engine handle the ticketing. Post plugins get the ticket assigned by the engine, but usually, a post plugin does not create a new thread, it is called by the decoder thread and therefore already owns the necessary ticket. All port functions are also ticket-safe as they follow all the rules given above.

You only have to remember that tickets need to be renewed as soon as possible, when the are revoked. For this, the helper function `_x_post_rewire()` should be used in prominent locations where it is safe to be suspended. Candidates for such locations are at the beginning of the port's `open()` and `get_frame()`/`get_buffer()` functions. The default pass through implementations for intercepted ports already do this.

The port tickets are revoked, whenever a rewiring takes place or the engine switches into pause mode. The tickets are reissued, when the rewiring is finished or the engine switches from pause mode into playback. Some post plugins might contain critical parts, where they must not be interrupted by a rewire or pause. These sections can be enclosed in `_x_post_lock()` and `_x_post_unlock()`, which will simply acquire and release an irrevocable ticket for you. As long as you hold such a ticket, it is guaranteed that you will never be interrupted by a pause or rewire.

## Video output

In order to allow for device-dependant acceleration features, xine calls upon the video output plugin for more than just displaying images. The tasks performed by the video plugins are:

- Allocation of vo_frame_t structures and their subsequent destruction.

- Allocation of memory for use by one frame (this is to allow for the ability of some video output plugins to map frames directly into video-card memory hence removing the need for the frame to be copied across the PCI/AGP bus at display time).

- Most important, the ability to render/copy a given frame to the output device.

- Optionally the copying of the frame from a file dependant colour-space and depth into the frame structure. This is to allow for on-the fly colour-space conversion and scaling if required (e.g. the XShm ouput plugin uses this mechanism).

Although these extra responsibilities add great complexity to your plugin it should be noted that they allow plugins to take full advantage of any special hardware-acceleration without sacrificing flexibility.

### Writing a xine video out plugin

The video out plugin API is declared in `src/xine-engine/video_out.h` The plugin info of video out plugins contains the visual type, priority, and the init_class function of the plugin.

The `visual_type` field is used by xine to determine if the GUI used by the client is supported by the plugin (e.g. X11 output plugins require the GUI to be running under the X Windowing system) and also to determine the type of information passed to the `open_plugin()` function as its `visual` parameter.

       char *get_description(video_driver_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a plaintext, one-line string describing the plugin.

       char *get_identifier(video_driver_class_t *this_gen);

This function returns a shorter identifier describing the plugin.

       void dispose(video_driver_class_t *this_gen);

This function frees the memory used by the video out plugin class object.

       vo_driver_t *get_instance(video_driver_class_t *class_gen, const void *visual);

Returns an instance of the plugin. The `visual` is a pointer to a visual-dependant structure/variable. For example, if you had previously claimed your plugin was of the VISUAL_TYPE_X11 type, this would be a pointer to a x11_visual_t, which amongst other things hold the Display variable associated with the X-server xine should display to. See plugin source-code for other VISUAL_TYPE_* constants and associated structures. Note that this field is provided by the client application and so if you wish to add another visual type you will either need to extend an existing client or write a new one.

       uint32_t get_capabilities(vo_driver_t *this_gen);

Returns a bit mask describing the output plugin's capabilities. You may logically OR the `VO_CAP_*` constants together to get a suitable bit-mask (via the '|' operator).

       int get_property(vo_driver_t *self, int property);
       int set_property(vo_driver_t *self, int property, int value);
       void get_property_min_max(vo_driver_t *self, int property, int *min, int *max);

Handle the getting, setting of properties and define their bounds. Valid property IDs can be found in the `video_out.h` header file.

       int gui_data_exchange(vo_driver_t *self, int data_type, void *data);

Accepts various forms of data from the UI (e.g. the mouse has moved or the window has been hidden). Look at existing plugins for examples of data exchanges from various UIs.

       vo_frame_t *alloc_frame(vo_driver_t *self);

Returns a pointer to a xine video frame. Typically the video plugin will add private fields to the end of the vo_frame_t structure which are used for internal purposes by the plugin.

The function pointers within the frame structure provide a mechanism for the driver to retain full control of how the frames are managed and rendered to. If the VO_CAP_COPIES_IMAGE flag was set in the plugins capabilities then the copy field is required and will be called sequentially for each 16-pixel high strip in the image. The plugin may then decide, based on the frame's format, how this is copied into the frame.

       void update_frame_format(vo_driver_t *self, vo_frame_t *img, uint32_t width, uint32_t height, double ratio, int format, int flags);

This function will be called each time the colour-depth/space or size of a frame changes. Typically this function would allocate sufficient memory for the frame, assign the pointers to the individual planes of the frame to the `base` field of the frame and perform any driver-specific changes.

       void display_frame(vo_driver_t *self, vo_frame_t *vo_img);

Renders a given frame to the output device.

       void overlay_begin(vo_driver_t *self, vo_frame_t *vo_img, int changed);
       void overlay_blend(vo_driver_t *self, vo_frame_t *vo_img, vo_overlay_t *overlay);
       void overlay_end(vo_driver_t *self, vo_frame_t *vo_img);

These are used to blend overlays on frames. `overlay_begin()` is called, when the overlay appears for the first time, `overlay_blend()` is then called for every subsequent frame and `overlay_end()` is called, when the overlay should disappear again.

       int redraw_needed(vo_driver_t *self);

Queries the driver, if the current frame needs to be drawn again.

       void dispose(vo_driver_t *self);

Releases all resources and frees the plugin.