alsearch - Search the AudioLink database for music
alsearch [
OPTION]...
search_option...
--td=/some/path/to/create/links/
alsearch [
OPTION]...
search_option...
-s
You can use this script to search for songs in the AudioLink database. You can
specify one or several options for the artist, composer, lyricist, album,
etc., as the search criteria.
You can specify several
search_option options to search for particular
music files. See the section on "search options" for the list of
options.
The search is not case sensitive.
alsearch looks for strings as well as
sub-strings in the fields being searched. See the "examples" section
for more information.
Specifying the
--td (target directory) option is mandatory for creating
links to the actual files. This directory will contain the symbolic links to
the actual audio files. The directory will be created if it doesn't exist.
Creating symbolic links to the actual files is analogous to creating playlists
in audio-playing software. Symbolic links are actually just point to the
actual files on the hard disk. This way of creating and storing playlists is
very useful in several ways, some of which are:
- 1. Compatible across various audio players
- Since the "playlists" are actually files
represented on your hard disk, you can add whole directories generated by
the alsearch program in the playlist of your audio software. If you
switch to another music player for whatever reason, you still have your
playlists. You don't have to bother about compatibility between the
playlist formats of the two players.
- 2. Can be seen and operated upon in a file browser
- As the symbolic links are present on a file-system, your
playlist collection can be viewed by using normal file operations in the
shell or using a GUI-based file browsing program. If the file browsing
program is supports file traversals and symlinks, it'll show you the
information of the actual song.
- --help
- Brief usage information
-
--host=xxx
- Connects to the MySQL server on the target host. Default is
localhost.
-
--pass=xxx
- Password for the database
-
-s, --na
- Just displays the search results, doesn't create links
(simulation mode)
-
--td=xxx
- Target-directory in which to create links
-
--user=xxx
- Username for the database
-
-v, --verbose
- Displays some extra information. Useful for spotting errors
and sending debug information.
-
--album=xxx
- Search in the "album" field
-
--artist=xxx
- Search in the artist/band/performers fields. You can give
this option multiple times, for example:
"alsearch --artist=kishore --artist=asha
--td=/songs/asha_kishore"
-
--comment=xxx
- Search in the "comment" field
-
-c, --composer=xxx
- Search in the "composer" field
-
--genre=xxx
- Search in the "genre" field
-
-l, --lyricist=xxx
- Search in the "lyricist" field
-
--title=xxx
- Search in the "title" field
The options that take arguments can be specified in two ways:
"alsearch --artist="kishore kumar" --td=/songs/kishore"
"alsearch --artist "kishore kumar" --td /songs/kishore"
That is, the option and the argument can be separated with a '
' (space)
or an '
=' (equal) sign.
In case you want to search for a string that has spaces, enclose the string in
" ".
"alsearch --artist=kishore --composer=burman --lyricist=bakshi"
Will search for songs sung by *Kishore*, composed by *Burman* and written by
*Bakshi*. Any name in the composer field which have "burman" in them
will be matched. This means, it'll find songs composed by RD Burman, SD
Burman, etc. This is true for all search fields.
L<
audiolink(1)>, L<
alfilldb(1)> The current version of this man page
is available on the AudioLink website at
<
http://audiolink.sourceforge.net/>.
Report bugs related to the AudioLink software or the man pages to the
audiolink-devel mailing list <
[email protected]>.
This manual page is written and maintained by Amit Shah <
[email protected]>
The AudioLink package is Copyright (C) 2003, Amit Shah <
[email protected]>.
All the programs and the documentation that come as part of AudioLink are
licensed by the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2).