link

Links this to dest.

The link must be from source to destination; the other direction will not be tried. The function looks for existing pads that aren't linked yet. It will request new pads if necessary. Such pads need to be released manually when unlinking. If multiple links are possible, only one is established.

Make sure you have added your elements to a bin or pipeline with add before trying to link them.

Example: Dynamic pipelines:

// See http://docs.gstreamer.com/x/aAAF
// for a detailed description

public class Main {
	private Gst.Pipeline pipeline;
	private Gst.Element source;
	private Gst.Element convert;
	private Gst.Element sink;

	//
	// Handler for the pad-added signal.
	//
	// This function will be called by the pad-added signal.
	//
	private void pad_added_handler (Gst.Element src, Gst.Pad new_pad) {
		Gst.Pad sink_pad = this.convert.get_static_pad ("sink");
		print ("Received new pad '%s' from '%s':\n", new_pad.name, src.name);

		// If our converter is already linked, we have nothing to do here:
		if (sink_pad.is_linked ()) {
			print ("	We are already linked. Ignoring.\n");
			return ;
		}

		// Check the new pad's type:
		Gst.Caps new_pad_caps = new_pad.query_caps (null);
		weak Gst.Structure new_pad_struct = new_pad_caps.get_structure (0);
		string new_pad_type = new_pad_struct.get_name ();
		if (!new_pad_type.has_prefix ("audio/x-raw")) {
			print ("	It has type '%s' which is not raw audio. Ignoring.\n", new_pad_type);
			return ;
		}

		// Attempt the link:
		Gst.PadLinkReturn ret = new_pad.link (sink_pad);
		if (ret != Gst.PadLinkReturn.OK) {
			print ("	Type is '%s' but link failed.\n", new_pad_type);
		} else {
			print ("	Link succeeded (type '%s').\n", new_pad_type);
		}
	}

	//
	// Example runner
	//
	public int run () {
		// Create the elements:
		this.source = Gst.ElementFactory.make ("uridecodebin", "source");
		this.convert = Gst.ElementFactory.make ("audioconvert", "convert");
		this.sink = Gst.ElementFactory.make ("autoaudiosink", "sink");

		// Create the empty pipeline:
		this.pipeline = new Gst.Pipeline ("test-pipeline");

		if (this.pipeline == null || this.source == null || this.convert == null || this.sink == null) {
			print ("Not all elements could be created.\n");
			return -1;
		}

		// Build the pipeline. Note that we are NOT linking the source at this
		// point. We will do it later.

		this.pipeline.add_many (this.source, this.convert , this.sink);
		if (!this.convert.link (this.sink)) {
			print ("Elements could not be linked.\n");
			return -1;
		}

		// Set the URI to play:
		this.source.set ("uri", "http://docs.gstreamer.com/media/sintel_trailer-480p.webm");

		// Connect to the pad-added signal:
		this.source.pad_added.connect (pad_added_handler);

		// Start playing:
		Gst.StateChangeReturn ret = this.pipeline.set_state (Gst.State.PLAYING);
		if (ret == Gst.StateChangeReturn.FAILURE) {
			stderr.puts ("Unable to set the pipeline to the playing state.\n");
			return -1;
		}

		// Listen to the bus:
		Gst.Bus bus = this.pipeline.get_bus ();
		bool terminate = false;
		do {
			Gst.Message msg = bus.timed_pop_filtered (Gst.CLOCK_TIME_NONE,
				Gst.MessageType.STATE_CHANGED | Gst.MessageType.ERROR | Gst.MessageType.EOS);

			// Parse message:
			if (msg != null) {
				switch (msg.type) {
				case Gst.MessageType.ERROR:
					GLib.Error err;
					string debug_info;

					msg.parse_error (out err, out debug_info);
					stderr.printf ("Error received from element %s: %s\n", msg.src.name, err.message);
					stderr.printf ("Debugging information: %s\n", (debug_info != null)? debug_info : "none");
					terminate = true;
					break;

				case Gst.MessageType.EOS:
					print ("End-Of-Stream reached.\n");
					terminate = true;
					break;

				case Gst.MessageType.STATE_CHANGED:
					// We are only interested in state-changed messages from the pipeline:
					if (msg.src == this.pipeline) {
						Gst.State old_state;
						Gst.State new_state;
						Gst.State pending_state;

						msg.parse_state_changed (out old_state, out new_state, out pending_state);
						print ("Pipeline state changed from %s to %s:\n",
							Gst.Element.state_get_name (old_state),
							Gst.Element.state_get_name (new_state));
					}
					break;

				default:
					//We should not reach here:
					assert_not_reached ();
				}
			}
		} while (!terminate);

		// Free resources:
		bus = null;
		this.pipeline.set_state (Gst.State.NULL);
		this.pipeline = null;

		return 0;
	}

	public static int main (string[] args) {
		// Initialize GStreamer:
		Gst.init (ref args);

		// Run the example:
		return new Main ().run ();
	}
}

valac --pkg gstreamer-1.0 dynamic-pipelines.vala

Parameters:

this	a Element containing the source pad.
dest	the Element containing the destination pad.

Returns:

true if the elements could be linked, false otherwise.