[Pythonmac-SIG] Reading iPod files

[Jack Jansen]

Dinu,
depending on how much work you want to put into this it might 
make a very nice demo of the capabilities of Python. I'm 
thinking of something like a lowlevel module that allows access 
to the database, and a couple of programs: at least a command 
line program and a GUI program, possibly a GUI program both with 
Carbon and one with Cocoa, maybe even a Scripting Addition that 
opens up the files to AppleScript, or [Help! Help! He's getting 
carried away!!] a CGI script that makes the contents of your 
iPod available on a webpage, that sort of things.

Hmm, [talk about getting carried away...], if the API to the 
lowlevel module is reasonably clean it might also be possible to 
write an alternative lowlevel module that would give the same 
access to your iTunes playlists. That would really be a very 
nice demo of the powers of Python...

But: by all means makes this available, even if the rant above 
doesn't have you jumping up and down with excitement:-)

On dinsdag, juli 9, 2002, at 12:47 , Dinu Gherman wrote:

> Hi,
>
> is any iPod owner here interested in a Python lib/tool to ex-
> tract sound files from an attached iPod back to a Mac again?
>
> Apple has made this rather difficult (probably paying some
> tribute to the Recording Mafia) by storing the songs in many
> subfolders and providing a binary database file that you need
> to read to find them. Also, the Finder hides them entirely.
>
> The DB format is mostly understood and there are already some
> GUI tools to extract files. Mine is different in that it has
> no GUI, but lets you export the song list into an XML file and
> provides a song search interface via regular expressions, so
> you can generate a decision tree-like directory hierarchy with
> the songs as leaf nodes.
>
> I wonder if I should make a Cocoa GUI for it or just give it
> away as-is (which probably means that true Mackies won't
> adopt it that easily)?
--
- Jack Jansen        <Jack.Jansen@oratrix.com>        
http://www.cwi.nl/~jack -
- If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution -- 
Emma Goldman -