Command-line tool to tag music?

[binocular222]

I'm going to use XY to tag my music database (store the tag inside the music file), so:
- Which format (i.e ID3v1/ID3v2) allow XY's internal properties such as #mp3.genre ?
- Which command-line tool should I use?

[binocular222]

Currently, I use kid3 but just found out that XY's native properties only read ID3v1, ignore ID3v2.3
Hmn, why not support ID3v2?

[TheQwerty]

XY does support ID3v2.3 and sometimes 2.4.

Things have improved only slightly since I explored this last year:

screenshot.57.png (41.67 KiB) Viewed 4591 times

Still XY claims Preview "cannot decode" MP3s with ID3v2.4 (at least here where I have no codecs installed).
There remain differences between the Meta tab and the columns:
v1.mp3; v1v2.4.mp3; and v2.4.mp3 only show Length & Bit rate in the Meta tab
v2.3.mp3 shows all fields (including comment) in the Meta tab but as you can see its MP3 Comments column is empty.

Maybe the inspiration that Don was waiting on is named binocular222?

[binocular222]

Oh, that's, I'm testing on Comment field.
btw, why I cannot make XY scripting to work with kid3-cli.exe

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run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""select <curitem>"" -c ""set Comment abc"""

Maybe something wrong with quoting again? even running directly through cmd.exe not work

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kid3-cli.exe -c select "C:\test.mp3" -c set comment "abc"

[PeterH]

At least quoting of 1st box doesn't fit quoting of 2nd. (Multiple different parts inside inner quotes.)
And maybe a missing ';' at the end of 1st box?

Maybe us stepping mode, and have a look at the parameters of run.
(If it's a longer script: put a Step; in front of run.)

[binocular222]

ok, found it

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	$term = "some genre";
	$command = "set genre '" . $term . "'";
	run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""$command"" ""<curitem>"""

[TheQwerty]

I was going to say. try:

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run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c 'select ""<curitem>""' -c 'set comment ""abc""'";

Their examples show that you are venturing into a land of quoting nightmares.

If you're able to use multi-line scripts I wholeheartedly recommend using heredocs:

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run <<<CMD
"D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe" -c 'select "<curitem>"' -c 'set comment "abc"'
CMD;

[bdeshi]

I think this should've worked too

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::run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c 'select ""<curitem>""' -c 'set comment ""abc""'";

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::$itm = "I:\t e\m.ext"; $cmt = "bla blah"; run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c 'select ""$itm""' -c 'set comment ""$cmt""'";

I'm reasonably certain select, set, comment are builtin commands and shouldn't need to be in quotes.
ed. Okay, I stand corrected.

[TheQwerty]

I'm reasonably certain select, set, comment are builtin commands and shouldn't need to be in quotes.

Based solely on their examples I don't think that's the case. It looks like anytime the command passed to the '-c' option contains a space it is quoted - so while set and select are builtin commands because they contain more than just the command name the entire parameter specified to the '-c' option needs to be quoted.

For instance, look at this example:

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kid3-cli -c autoimport -c 'syncto 1' -c fromtag -c playlist \
  /path/to/dir/*.mp3

The syncto 1 is quoted because that particular command has additional arguments and thus contains a space.

EDIT: And then because some of these commands can contain their own arguments which can contain spaces (comments, file paths) those are also quoted.

So you've got multiple sets of quotes...
Those surrounding application and its arguments.
Those around some kid3 commands (passed to '-c').
Those around some parameters for the kid3 commands (passed to select, etc.).

/edit

ed. Okay, I stand corrected.

See a quoting nightmare!

[binocular222]

Oh, there seems to be a bug:
echo <prop #mp3.Comments>
trim off first 3 characters. i.e: ID3v2 comment "abcdef" → XY return "def"
This doesn't happens with ID3v1 comment

[TheQwerty]

Oh, there seems to be a bug:
echo <prop #mp3.Comments>
trim off first 3 characters. i.e: the comment "abcdef" → XY return "def"

That looks right to me.
What are you expecting?

[binocular222]

echo <prop #mp3.Comments>
should return "abcdef"
Anyway, this seems to be a correct way to set comments via kid3-cli and also allow <prop #mp3.comments>

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	$term = "abyz ghi";
	$command = "set comment '" . $term . "'";
	run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""tag 1"" -c ""$command"" ""<curitem>""";
	run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""tag 2"" -c ""set comment ''"" ""<curitem>""";

[TheQwerty]

echo <prop #mp3.Comments>
should return "abcdef"
Anyway, this seems to be a correct way to set comments via kid3-cli and also allow <prop #mp3.comments>

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	$term = "abyz ghi";
	$command = "set comment '" . $term . "'";
	run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""tag 1"" -c ""$command"" ""<curitem>""";
	run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""tag 2"" -c ""set comment ''"" ""<curitem>""";

This goes back to the screenshot/post I mentioned earlier. I believe <prop #mp3.Comments> only pulls comments from the ID3v1 field, so if you only set the comment in ID3v2 XY won't see it.

I think you might be able to shorten that by doing:

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	$term = "abyz ghi";
	$command = "set comment '" . $term . "'";
	run """D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe"" -c ""tagformat 1"" -c ""tagformat 2"" -c ""$command"" ""<curitem>""";

Though I'd really recommend using:

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	$term = "abyz ghi";
	$command = <<<COMMAND
set comment "$term"
COMMAND;
	run <<<CMD
"D:\Doc\Temporary\kid3\kid3-cli.exe" -c 'tagformat 1' -c 'tagformat 2' -c '$command' "<curitem>"
CMD;

[binocular222]

ok, my plan is: Tag music with XY's native tag > copy that into music files' comment field > move files to another computer > copy comment filed to XY's native tag
Sound good? any better plan?

P.S maybe comment field is too volatile, I may use genre field instead

[bdeshi]

write comments to a companion file/db. Eg,

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.\dir\file.mp3
.\dir\file2.mp3
.\dir.tags

.tags are text file that point to files as relative paths, and list tags/comments/labels/what have you, preferably in the same format as XY's tag.db.
The only requirement is the files have to be transferred without changing the relative path structure.

This will be faster and less cumbersome, and cleaner, than writing-reading each mp3 separately.