mmmd_get()

Get the specified metadata fields from the specified item.

Synopsis:

#include <mm/md.h>
int mmmd_get( mmmd_hdl_t *hdl, 
              const char *item, 
              const char *types, 
              const char *source, 
              uint32_t count, 
              char **md )

Arguments:

hdl

The handle of the session associated with the mediastore where metadata is being read

item

A URL or an absolute path to the item containing the metadata

types

A string storing the requested metadata types (fields) as a series of group-attributes listings. Here, group refers to the metadata category (e.g., title) while attributes refers to the list of requested attributes (e.g., artist, album).

Each group and its list of attributes must be separated by the :: delimiter and the individual attributes must be separated by commas. Also, each group-attributes listing must be followed by a line-break character, as shown in the following example:

md_title::name,artist,album\nmd_video::width,height

This syntactic grouping of metadata types makes it easy to request multiple related fields.

source

A string specifying the metadata source (i.e., the MDP to use). Currently, this feature isn't supported so this argument must be NULL to indicate that all sources can be used.

count

The number of desired matches (i.e., responses from MDPs).

If source is NULL and count is 0, all responses are collated to return the highest-rated response (see the Description subsection for an explanation).

If source is NULL and count is nonzero, the number of responses returned is less than or equal to count, starting with the highest-rated response. No collation is performed.

md

A pointer to a string pointer that references the buffer storing the response. The string pointer is set by the function. Examples of the formatting and typical contents of the response buffer are given in the Description subsection.

Library:

libmd

Description:

Get the specified metadata fields from the specified item. The types string must state the requested fields as group-attributes listings, as explained in the Arguments subsection.

Because different MDPs support different fields, libmd uses as many MDPs as necessary to extract metadata for all the fields listed in types. The order that libmd uses to invoke the MDPs is the plugin preference order for the file type indicated by the URL or path in item. The preference order is stated in the configuration file.

For the lists of fields supported by different MDPs, see Included MDPs.

Retrieving multiple responses

Setting count to a value greater than 0 allows you to retrieve multiple matches (responses) for metadata fields. Your client code can then choose the set of responses that provides the user with the most accurate and complete metadata possible. The number of responses returned is less than count if the number of MDPs supporting any of the requested fields is also less than count. A nonzero value for this argument simply limits the number of responses that can be returned.

Suppose a client sets count to 3 and requests the md_title_artist and md_title_orientation fields from a POSIX file while the MDP preference order for POSIX files is mmf, mediafs, exif. The MMF and MediaFS MDPs support the first field but not the second; the Exif MDP supports the second field but not the first. The libmd library stores a pointer in md that references the following string:

md_src_name::mmf\nmd_src_rating::0\nmd_title_artist::some_artist\n
md_src_name::mediafs\nmd_src_rating::1\nmd_title_artist::some_artist
\nmd_src_name::exif\nmd_src_rating::2\nmd_orientation::landscape\0

The name and rating of the MDP that produced the metadata are placed in front of every metadata field. Ratings are offsets in the zero-based list of preferred MDPs, so 0 indicates the first plugin listed, 1 indicates the second listed, and so on.

Retrieving the highest-rated responses

Setting count to 0 makes libmd collate the responses from many MDPs into one result set to produce the highest-rated response, which is the set of metadata field values obtained from the MDPs listed earliest in the plugin preference order.

Suppose a client sets count to 0 and requests the md_title_width, md_title_height, and md_title_orientation fields from a POSIX file while the MDP preference order is the same as listed above. The MMF and MediaFS MDPs support the first two fields but not the last; only the Exif MDP supports the last field. The libmd library sets md to reference the following string:

md_title_width::response_from_MMF\nmd_title_height::response_from_
MMF\nmd_title_orientation::response_from_Exif

Because MMF is rated ahead of MediaFS, this first MDP's values for md_title_width and md_title_height are returned. Neither MMF nor MediaFS supports md_title_orientation, so the value from Exif for this last field is returned.

Returning metadata memory

The metadata pointer (md) should be deallocated using free() when the metadata is no longer needed. The libmd library sets this pointer to a valid value (i.e., non-NULL) only if the return value is greater than 0, meaning metadata was found.

Returns:

-1 on error

0 on failure to get metadata (but no errors occurred)

>0 on success (indicating the number of responses)