[MPlayer-users] playlist file syntax

[James Gatt]

Quoting The Wanderer <inverseparadox at comcast.net>:

> James Gatt wrote:
>
> > Quoting D Richard Felker III <dalias at aerifal.cx>:
> >
> >> On Tue, Dec 07, 2004 at 06:20:39PM -0800, Jessica Johnson wrote:
> >>
> >>> Hi all,
> >>>
> >>> The docs say that the playlist format is one file per line. So it
> >>> doesn't seem to be possible to make a playlist file that includes
> >>> a playtree. (Correct me if I'm wrong here.)  It would be useful
> >>> to be able to specify, say
> >>>
> >>> { "song1.mp3" "song2.mp3" }
> >>> { "song3.mp3" }
> >>>
> >>> in a playlist file.
> >>>
> >>> I've been thinking of modifying the source to expand the accepted
> >>> syntax of a playlist file.  Is this something other people would
> >>> be interested in? Any core developers want to comment on the
> >>> likelihood of this patch being accepted?
> >>
> >> it won't be accepted, because it makes it impossible to play a
> >> playlist with a file named '{ "song1.mp3" "song2.mp3" }' in it!
> >
> > How is that useful? Do you know anyone who puts double quotes in
> > filenames? I know you *can*, but...
>
> I sometimes do.
>
> I have an archive of digital copes of episodes of various TV series on
> my hard drive(s), and I make it a habit to put the title of each episode
> in its filename. In a few cases, there are double-quotation marks in the
> title, so the same will appear in the filename.
>
> Also, I prefer to give non-episode non-movie video clips descriptive
> filenames, and that sometimes involves setting part of the description
> apart from the rest - in a way which is best done with quotation marks.
> It hardly happens with every file, but it's still more common than you
> might think.
>
> (I've also been stymied, on occasion, by being unable to similarly put
> the slash character in filenames (even escaped)... but that's a whole
> 'nother rant.)

I generally try to avoid putting characters in filenames which make the
filenames non-portable across platforms (typically Linux and Win32). If I see
these same restrictions in an application program, it does not bother me.

> > After all, is there a way to put filenames containing linefeeds into
> > playlists? If not then there are already restrictions in the
> > filenames allowed by the playlist format over and above those of the
> > file system.
>
> ..filenames containing newlines - there's an idea which had never
> occurred to me... and I *really* don't see how that could be useful.

The point being not so much about whether this is a useful feature, but that it
is a feature of the Linux file system that the current playlist format (as far
as I know) already does not support. This makes the set of filename characters
supported in the playlist format arbitrary, which makes the argument about not
supporting certain filenames a moot point, especially as the current utility of
the entire playlist system is so low.