🐱 A Tool for parsing foobar2000 Playlist files 🐱
- Command-line tool
- File input: .fpl
- Check for Missing Files with -e
- In-operation Replacement in Filepaths (manipulate paths from files) with regex options -r:a & -r:d
- Custom Output Options with -o
This program is OS-aware when compiled.
Therefore the appropriate path separator will be used.
(\ on Windows and / on UNIX-like systems)
The basic principle for this tool is to read in a foobar2000 playlist file and print all containing files to the output.
Inbetween input and output there are several options that can be used for parsing and manipulation.
For example you can use this tool to create a simple .m3u playlist file.
fpltool myplaylist.fpl > myM3Uplaylist.m3uBasic usage:
fplTool myplaylist.fpl
This will read in all playlist files from the given myplaylist.fpl playlist and print them as output.
Check for missing files:
Enable with option -e
When this option is supplied all files are checked whether they exist or not.
Non-existing files are printed to stderr.
With this option only files that exist are output.
Apply patterns to filepaths
This options allows the user to supply a pattern that is used when filepaths are read in.
👆 These options will be applied before file-check with -e 👆
There are two options you can use:
fplTool -r:d <REGEX>or
fplTool -r:d <REGEX> -r:a <STRING>Use regex for deletion - r:d <REGEX>
When supplying this option the regular expression REGEX is applied to all filepaths from the playlist. Portions that get matched will be removed from the path.
This option is intended to be used when changing all paths from all playlist files.
Important
REGEX can only support basic 8-bit chars! (nothing above U+00FF)
Example
Remove drive letters from files
General playlist:
fplTool myplaylist.fpl
Q:/music/1.mp3
Q:/music/2.mp3
Q:/music/3.mp3
Q:/music/4.mp3
Q:/music/5.mp3
Removing all drive letters:
fplTool -r:d "Q:/" myplaylist.fpl
music/1.mp3
music/2.mp3
music/3.mp3
music/4.mp3
music/5.mp3
Use regex for replacement - r:d <REGEX> and r:a <STRING>
When supplying both options the first operation will still remove the matched <REGEX> string.
Following the deletion, all matched portions inside the filepaths will be replaced with <STRING>.
This string can be anything, but the format here is defined in the ECMAscript standard 262. This can be used to reference the removed portions of the path in the given string.
For a detailed overview check:
- regex_replace, used here
- ECMAscript syntax
Example
Substiute filepaths (f.e. if you moved your library):
General playlist:
fplTool myplaylist.fpl
Q:/music/1.mp3
Q:/music/2.mp3
Q:/music/3.mp3
Q:/music/4.mp3
Substitute to accomodate new paths:
fplTool -r:d "/music/" -r:a "/music/newmix/" myplaylist.fpl
Q:/music/newmix/1.mp3
Q:/music/newmix/2.mp3
Q:/music/newmix/3.mp3
Q:/music/newmix/4.mp3
Q:/music/newmix/5.mp3
or if moved to a different disk:
fplTool -r:d "Q:" -r:a "Z:" myplaylist.fpl
Z:/music/1.mp3
Z:/music/2.mp3
Z:/music/3.mp3
Z:/music/4.mp3
Z:/music/5.mp3
Custom Output Options - -o <OPTION>
This option will produce an output that is formatted to a specific spec.
Currently implemented formats:
- M3U
- EXTM3U (extended M3U)
These options currently only output text-based playlists. They can be used to pipe the output to a file.
Prerequisites
- cmake (> 3.12)
- a C++ toolchain (tested with gcc 11.4)
To build from source, first clone the repository.
Then build like an usual cmake project.
mkdir build
cmake -S . -B build
cmake --build buildIf you want to build in debug mode, set the option: BUILD_DEBUG=1
mkdir build
cmake -S . -B build -DBUILD_DEBUG=1
cmake --build buildJust invoke cmake with install but select the target build directory.
Important
This may require sudo or system administrator privileges!
# if build with: cmake -S . -B build
cmake --install buildCurrently I'm working on this project to give a reliable option from transitioning from foobar2000 to VLC (and to Linux as there is no native foobar2000 version 🙃). For this I tend to use this as an option to save me some hassle and rebuild my complete playlist from scratch.
Therefore probably some features will be also implemented that accomodate updating existing playlist files or stuff like that.
At the moment the most limiting factor (besides time) is the distinct lack of information about the format of the .fpl-file format. I reverse-engineered some portions and I also found quite some forum posts about that format, but somehow nobody has a clear solution.