I think we should have a gst_structure_get_uint() that we can cleanly use with
unsigned integer pointers as out parameter with gcc4.

Check out bug #303011 and gst/speed/gstspeed.[ch] for the problem. We have

struct MyPlugin
{
  ...
  guint channels;
  guint rate;
  ...
};

and then do

 ret = gst_structure_get_int (s, "channels", &filter->channels);
 ret = gst_structure_get_int (s, "rate", &filter->rate);

etc. and gcc4 barfs. And there must be hundreds of those in the plugins tree.

Now, I think it's simply wrong and ugly to cast those out parameter pointers.
Similarly I find it unacceptable to change the struct members to gint (if I have
variables that can never be negative, they should stay unsigned IMHO, not to
mention that changing them might trigger other signed/unsigned complaints
elsewehre).


The problem is of course that the underlying value types G_TYPE_INT and
G_TYPE_UINT are not compatible, so g_value_get_* will complain if the value
holds a type of a different signedness.

So here's my suggestion, which I know is evil, but still think it's the best way:

add gst_structure_get_uint() and make both _get_uint() and _get_int() handle
both G_TYPE_INT and G_TYPE_UINT fields and cast them as appropriate. At least
performance-wise this shouldn't be a problem, as those two types are fundamental
types and thus integer constants.

Proposed patch attached.

Flame ahead :P

Cheers
 -Tim