From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Msuck: nntp://news.gmane.io/gmane.emacs.gnus.general/18412 Path: main.gmane.org!not-for-mail From: Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen Newsgroups: gmane.emacs.gnus.general Subject: Re: all you MP3 people out there... a fix for lars! Date: 07 Nov 1998 14:54:49 +0100 Sender: owner-ding@hpc.uh.edu Message-ID: References: <86vhl48scz.fsf@kramer-fast.bp.aventail.com> <87g1c7o795.fsf@perv.daft.com> <8iww5j3x6e.fsf@broca.biostr.washington.edu> <86d87a58uo.fsf@kramer-fast.bp.aventail.com> <86zpad53al.fsf@kramer-fast.bp.aventail.com> <86lnlrviwx.fsf@kramer-fast.bp.aventail.com> <86iugu8elw.fsf@kramer-fast.bp.aventail.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: coloc-standby.netfonds.no Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1 Content-Transfer-Encoding: 8bit X-Trace: main.gmane.org 1035156941 6025 80.91.224.250 (20 Oct 2002 23:35:41 GMT) X-Complaints-To: usenet@main.gmane.org NNTP-Posting-Date: Sun, 20 Oct 2002 23:35:41 +0000 (UTC) Return-Path: Original-Received: from fisher.math.uh.edu (fisher.math.uh.edu [129.7.128.35]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA08276 for ; Sat, 7 Nov 1998 09:17:04 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: from sina.hpc.uh.edu (lists@Sina.HPC.UH.EDU [129.7.3.5]) by fisher.math.uh.edu (8.9.1/8.9.1) with ESMTP id IAB16942; Sat, 7 Nov 1998 08:16:54 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: by sina.hpc.uh.edu (TLB v0.09a (1.20 tibbs 1996/10/09 22:03:07)); Sat, 07 Nov 1998 08:16:37 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sclp3.sclp.com (root@sclp3.sclp.com [209.195.19.139]) by sina.hpc.uh.edu (8.7.3/8.7.3) with ESMTP id IAA23301 for ; Sat, 7 Nov 1998 08:15:59 -0600 (CST) Original-Received: from sparky.gnus.org (ppp032.uio.no [129.240.240.33]) by sclp3.sclp.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with ESMTP id JAA08219 for ; Sat, 7 Nov 1998 09:15:50 -0500 (EST) Original-Received: (from larsi@localhost) by sparky.gnus.org (8.8.5/8.8.5) id PAA18622; Sat, 7 Nov 1998 15:16:13 +0100 Mail-Copies-To: never X-Now-Reading: Janet Frame's _The Carpathians_ X-Now-Playing: Isotope 217's _The Unstable Molecule_: "Phonometrics" Original-To: ding@gnus.org In-Reply-To: wmperry@aventail.com's message of "05 Nov 1998 08:15:55 -0500" User-Agent: Gnus/5.070041 (Pterodactyl Gnus v0.41) Emacs/20.3 X-Face: &w!^oO~dS|}-P0~ge{$c!h\ One thing I _cannot_ believe is that the cddb people require a specific > _ordering_ to the stuff in the query. Completely BGOUS. That's the whole > point of having NAMES for those damn things in the format, right? *sigh* > Even after 5 1/2 years of working on web stuff, people still come up with > ways to disgust me. :) Everything about the cddb format disgusts me. Let me count you the ways, but first, here's a typical cddb entry: # xmcd CD database file # # Track frame offsets: # 150 # 15660 # 42115 # 70277 # 94335 # 127810 # # Disc length: 1869 seconds # # Revision: 0 # Submitted via: IdiotJukebox 1.0 (Emacs 20.3.1) # DISCID=46074b06 DTITLE=Isotope 217 / The Unstable Molecule TTITLE0=Kryptonite Smokes The Red Line TTITLE1=Beneath the Undertow TTITLE2=La Jeteé TTITLE3=Phonometrics TTITLE4=Prince Namor TTITLE5=Audio Boxing EXTD= EXTT0= EXTT1= EXTT2= EXTT3= EXTT4= EXTT5= PLAYORDER= Ok, we have something that looks like comments first, and then data. But, no. Everything in the "comments" section has to be there, and has to be there in that order. First we have the track frames, and we see that they cleverly neglected to include the concluding track frame, which means that there really is no way to say exactly how long a CD is. One can approximate by looking at the "Disc length" entry, but that's only with second granularity. So, they throw away info. That DISCID thing looks really clever, doesn't it? 32 bits; that should be four billion possibilities, right? Nope. The last byte is the number of tracks, so this byte is usually in the 09-0f range. The two previous bytes are the track offsets added together (!), which means that the range used here is limited as well. That leaves the first byte, which is actually uses a bit of %-ing to get at, which means that it's pseudo-random. I guesstimate that the likelihood that two cd's generate the same ID is about one in a million, which is quite a feat. Next, we have the DTITLE. We see that they cleverly put the artist and the album title in the same string, separated by " / ", which means that the "/" characted can't be included in an artist name or album title. Groovy! Then the track titles follow, and if a title is longer than 70 characters, one gets TTITLE0=Big Car (Remix Vocal Edit) very very very very very very very very TTITLE0= very long title Clever, huh? Then, at the end, we have the comments, and no client ever fills out track comments, but they have to be there anyway. I really couldn't have come up with a more stupid format if I were stoned out on alcohol. It's totally unflexible, loses information, un-extendable, disallows certain inputs, and is verbose. Ptui. -- (domestic pets only, the antidote for overdose, milk.) larsi@gnus.org * Lars Magne Ingebrigtsen