NAME
alsearch - Search the AudioLink database for music
SYNOPSIS
alsearch [OPTION]... search_option... --td=/some/path/to/create/links/
alsearch [OPTION]... search_option... -s
DESCRIPTION
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.
OPTIONS
--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.
SEARCH OPTIONS
--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
EXAMPLES
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.
SEE ALSO
L<audiolink(1)>, L<alfilldb(1)> The current version of this man page is
available on the AudioLink website at
<http://audiolink.sourceforge.net/>.
BUGS
Report bugs related to the AudioLink software or the man pages to the
audiolink-devel mailing list <audiolink-devel@lists.sourceforge.net>.
AUTHOR
This manual page is written and maintained by Amit Shah
<amitshah@gmx.net>
COPYRIGHT
The AudioLink package is Copyright (C) 2003, Amit Shah
<amitshah@gmx.net>. All the programs and the documentation that come as
part of AudioLink are licensed by the GNU General Public License v2
(GPLv2).