[FFmpeg-devel] [PATCH] New API usage example (reading, converting, encoding and muxing an audio file)

[Paolo Prete]

What you say is true, IMHO, as long as the functions (in which the code is split) do really group logically related tasks and they have names that summarize what they are doing. In the examined case this is not true, see for example (in muxing.c):
static void open_video(AVFormatContext *oc, const AVCodec *codec, OutputStream *ost, AVDictionary *opt_arg)

The name "open_video" is too generic and it doesn't let the user know what the function is actually doing, without jumping from line to line in the code. In fact the function mixes different tasks: it opens the codec, it allocates a frame, it copies the stream parameters to the muxer. Same thing for write_audio_frame(), and in fact a comment is put just above the function, and it says:
"encode one audio frame and send it to the muxer,,,"
...which is obscure from the function's name (and, again, the user is forced to jump often from a chunk to another chunk of code in order to understand what the code is _generally_ doing).Note too that this can't be fixed by using more explicative or longer names, because the functions mixes tasks which are _different_.
Therefore, these functions in many cases do not improve readability and IMHO is better to have a longer code instead of forcing grouping different tasks in the same function with an ambiguous name.



   Il martedì 7 giugno 2022, 11:42:23 CEST, Anton Khirnov <anton at khirnov.net> ha scritto:  
 
 Quoting Paolo Prete (2022-06-06 19:40:42)
> Hello,
> From what I see, the doc/examples files can be still improved. More
> precisely, their main() is often split into functions with short names
> that hide important (sometime essential) details of what they're doing
> and they worsen the readability, by forcing the user to jump from
> chunks to chunks of the code.

I disagree VERY strongly.

Long functions are extremely hard to reason about, because of all the
pieces you have to keep in your head at once. Grouping logically related
blocks of code into their own small functions that can be thought of as
a single unit immensely improves readability and maintainability.

-- 
Anton Khirnov
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