id3 —
an ID3 tag
editor
| id3 |
[-tTaAycg
newdata]
file...
|
The
id3 tool is an ID3 v1.1 tag editor. ID3 tags
are traditionally put at the end of compressed streamed audio files to denote
information about the audio contents. Up to thirty characters of Title,
Artist, and Album information can be stored, as well as a 28-character
comment, four-digit year, track number up to 255, and an enumerated genre.
The
id3 tool accepts the following command-line
options:
-
-t
title
- Sets the title tag to the first 30 characters of the
title argument.
-
-T
track
- Sets the track tag to a number between 0 and 255.
-
-a
artist
- Sets the artist tag to the first 30 characters of the
artist argument.
-
-A
album
- Sets the album tag to the first 30 characters of the
album argument.
-
-y
year
- Sets the year tag to the first 4 characters of the
year argument.
-
-c
comment
- Sets the comment tag to the first 28 characters of the
comment argument.
-
-g
genre
- Sets the genre number tag using a genre number or
predefined genre label.
- -l
- List/view the ID3 tag.
- -L
- List all genre tags.
- -R
- Use rfc822-style output for tag printout.
- --d
- Delete the ID3 tag.
Not taken into consideration.
The
id3 utility exits 0 on success,
and >0 if an error occurs.
id3tool(1),
id3v2(1)
The ID3 version 1 (and 1.1) format has never really been standardized. The
id3 tool follows what is pretty much a
commonly-agreed-on file format.
The ID3 format has some shortcomings. There is a 1 in 16777216 chance of your
mp3 having a certain bit-pattern, causing id3 to write over the last 128 bytes
of your mp3 upon tag creation. If you add a track number to an ID3 v1.0 tag,
the last two characters of the comment string will be truncated. Any bugs
found in the
id3 tool should be forwarded to the
author.
The
id3 tool was originally developed by
Robert Woodcock
⟨
[email protected]⟩. Some patches were developed by
Stefan Ott ⟨
[email protected]⟩.
In 2016, development was taken over by
Peter
Pentchev ⟨
[email protected]⟩.