[MPlayer-users] playlist file syntax

[D Richard Felker III]

On Wed, Dec 08, 2004 at 01:04:36PM +0000, 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... After all, is there a way to put filenames containing

YES, I DO!!! IF IT'S PART OF THE NAME OF THE SONG!!
pretty much anyone who names their mp3s with the full titles rather
than just short_name.mp3 runs into this problem.

> 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.

putting linefeeds in filenames is idiotic. putting natural characters
like " and { and } is not. i want to be able to generate a basic
playlist from the output of the "ls" command without needing to do all
kinds of additional processing to escape characters...

> Particularly looping. It would be good to be able to specify options like
> looping in playlists as well. Right now the playlist support is so basic that I
> don't think it offers anything more than can be achieved using a shell script
> and just calling mplayer for each file to be played. To this end is it really
> worth defending the current playlist format against features offered by
> non-core members?

yes! people use it and don't want it broken for the sake of some silly
obscure feature. i use "mplayer -shuffle -playlist foo.list" all the
time, and i expect many others do too.

> I am having this rant because I've seen a lot of derogatory comments made to
> people asking innocent and often valid questions on this list. It is foolish
> for the core mplayer team to believe that everyone else is incapable of coming
> up with useful ideas and writing good code for them. If it is made too hard for
> people to submit patches that are accepted, then mplayer development will simply
> fork.

go right ahead. no one is stopping you. :))

> I have some patches that fix issues and crashes I have come across in mplayer. I
> have not submitted them because I feel in the current climate they might not be
> welcome.

Please, do submit these. I can't promise they'll be accepted, if the
fixes have bad side effects or are poorly written, but someone will at
least read them and maybe write a different fix if they don't like
yours.

> This doesn't hurt *me*, as my version of mplayer no longer suffers
> from these problems, but it hurts all other mplayer users who suffer from these
> problems and don't know how to fix them - unless / until someone else fixes them
> and submits a patch that will be accepted. Until the attitude on the mplayer
> lists changes a *lot* to the better and more welcoming, this will not change.
> 
> (This is not aimed at any one person by the way - It's certainly not aimed
> directly to Mr. Felker's post to which I have responded.)

:)

Rich