pythonplaylistparser

Inspiration

• My music library was trapped in iTunes
• I don't use iTunes (or Windows, or OS X)

How it works

• iTunes exports its library in an xml plist form
• This script reads it, can spit playlists into arbitrary other formats, and do some basic library analysis stuff
  • (e.g. list artists with fewer then N songs in your library)

Challenges I ran into

• Okay so this is a fun one
• I used iTunes on Windows, or more specifically, on an NTFS filesystem
• NTFS is case-insensitive!
• There were odd circumstances where iTunes would write a case-inaccurate filepath for a track to the library file!
• So when you spit a playlist into, say, m3u format and pop it into mpd on linooks (well, ext4, or most other filesystems), it pukes!
• So I got to write a filepath case-sensitizer
• Also iTunes URL-encodes filepaths when writing, and other platforms expect, well, not that.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

• I wrote this monstrosity in high school, so not a lot

What I learned

• XML is unholy
• m3u is simple and cool

What's next for pythonplaylistparser

• A C++ reincarnation that doesn't suck and does more things

Built With

• python