GStreamer plugin search path?

You can no longer do this programmatically in gstreamer 1.0.

In the above answer,

gst_registry_get_default() was replaced with gst_registry_get() and gst_registry_add_path() was removed.

You can also set GST_PLUGIN_SYSTEM_PATH to the location of the Plugins. Not sure what the difference is between this and GST_PLUGIN_PATH though.

In case you are running GStreamer from command line you may add --gst-plugin-path=PATHS to the command

Example adding current directory as plugins path

gst-inspect-1.0 kvssink --gst-plugin-path=$PWD

There is much more useful commands available just check:

gst-launch-1.0 --help-gst

Use the GST_PLUGIN_PATH environment variable to point at the directory you want, or programatically just call:

GstRegistry *registry;
registry = gst_registry_get();
gst_registry_scan_path(registry, directory);