pytaglib 1.0.1

*pytaglib* – TagLib bindings for Python
=======================================

Overview
--------
*pytaglib* is a package of [Python](www.python.org) (2.6+/3.1+) bindings for
[Taglib](taglib.github.io). It provides a full-featured audio metadata ("tag") library supporting
all current versions of Python.

The package gives you complete freedom over the tag names – you are not limited to common tags like
`ARTIST`, `ALBUM` etc.; instead you may use any string as key as long as the underlying metadata
format supports it (most of them do, including *mp3*, *ogg*, and *FLAC*). Moreover, you can even
use multiple values of the same tag, in order to e.g. store two artists, several genres, and so on.


Requirements
------------
*pytaglib* uses Taglib features that have been added in version 1.8-BETA, so you need at least that
version along with development headers to compile *pytaglib*. The recent releases of most linux
flavours nowadays ship taglib ≥ 1.8, including:

- Ubuntu from 12.10
- Debian jessie (currently testing) or wheezy-packports
- Linux Mint from 14
- Arch Linux
- Gentoo Linux
- Fedora from 17

The use of taglib ≥ 1.9 is recommended, since that release fixes some bugs that may affect
*pytaglib* in less common circumstances.

In theory, *pytaglib* should also compile and run on Windows, though I did not succeed when I last
tried. Any help with that issue is appreciated!

Installation
------------
Debian sid and Ubuntu trusty have binary packages for the Python 3 version, called `python3-taglib`.
For Arch users, there is a [package](https://aur.archlinux.org/packages/python-pytaglib/) in the
user repository (AUR).

If your distribution does not ship *pytaglib*, it can easily be installed by one of the following
methods.

- The easiest way is to use *pip* or *easy_install*:

sudo pip install pytaglib

or

sudo easy_install pytaglib

On systems which use Python 2 by default, this will compile and install the Python 2 version.
Use something like

sudo pip3 pytaglib

to build the package for Python 3 (the exact command depends on your distribution). Both
commands can be run with the `--user` option (and without `sudo`) which will install everything
into your home directory.

- Alternatively, you can download the source tarball and compile manually:

python3 setup.py build
python3 setup.py test # optional
sudo python3 setup.py install

Replace `python3` by the interpreter executable of the desired Python version.

The compiler must be able to find headers and dynamic library of TagLib. Usually, they should be
installed at standard places. If not, you can manually specify include and lib directories, e.g.:

python setup.py build_ext --include-dirs /usr/local/include --library-dirs /usr/local/lib

The `taglib` Python extension is built from the file `taglib.cpp` which is, in turn,
auto-generated with [Cython](www.cython.org) from `taglib.pyx`. To re-cythonize this file instead of
using the shipped `taglib.cpp`, invoke `setup.py` with the ``-cython` option.


Usage
-----

The use of the library is pretty straightforward:

1. Load the library: `import taglib`
2. Open a file: `f = taglib.File("/path/to/file.mp3")`
3. Read tags from the dict `f.tags` which maps uppercase tag names to lists of tag values (note
that even single values are stored as list in order to be consistent).
4. Some other information about the file is available as well: `f.length`,
`f.sampleRate`, `f.channels`, `f.bitrate`, and `f.readOnly`.
5. Alter the tags by manipulating the dictionary `f.tags`. You should always
use uppercase tag names and lists of strings for the values.
6. Store your changes: `retval = f.save()`.
7. If some tags could not be saved because they are not supported by the
underlying format, those will be contained in the list returned from
`f.save()`.

The following snippet should show the most relevant features. For a complete
reference confer the online help via `help(taglib.File)`.

$ python
Python 3.3.0 (default, Sep 29 2012, 15:50:43)
[GCC 4.7.1 20120721 (prerelease)] on linux
Type "help", "copyright", "credits" or "license" for more information.
>>> import taglib
>>> f = taglib.File("x.flac")
>>> f
File('x.flac')
>>> f.tags
{'ARTIST': ['piman', 'jzig'], 'ALBUM': ['Quod Libet Test Data'], 'TITLE': ['Silence'], 'GENRE': ['Silence'], 'TRACKNUMBER': ['02/10'], 'DATE': ['2004']}
>>> f.tags["ALBUM"] = ["Always use lists even for single values"]
>>> del f.tags["GENRE"]
>>> f.tags["ARTIST"].remove("jzig")
>>> retval = f.save()
>>> retval
{}
>>>

**Note:** As *pytaglib* was designed mainly for Python 3, all string values returned are unicode
strings (type `str` in Python 3 and `unicode` in Python 2). On the input side, however, the library
is rather permissive and supports both byte- and unicode-strings. Internally, *pytaglib* converts
all strings to `UTF-8` before storing them in the files.

*pyprinttags*
-------------

This package also installs the small script `pyprinttags`. It takes one or more files as
command-line parameters and will display all known metadata of that files on the terminal.
If unsupported tags (a.k.a. non-textual information) are found, they can optionally be removed
from the file.

Contact
-------
For bug reports or feature requests, please use the
[issue tracker](https://github.com/supermihi/pytaglib/issues) on GitHub. For anything else, contact
me by [email](michaelhelmling@posteo.de).