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[phalanthus]

 
.txt file as an option seems to have disappeared
any reason why or am i mistaken ?

[Scolex]

text file  (CSV delimited) is an option for me.
Which version are you using? Are you doing this through right click or the file menu?

The below is from the 17.0.95 update (related?)
8. Changed: The text output in the Export Playlist tool creates standard CSV output (RFC 4180 compliant).

[MrC]

17.0.95 (2/24/2012)

8. Changed: The text output in the Export Playlist tool creates standard CSV output (RFC 4180 compliant).

[phalanthus]

rather irritating
i used it to add track listings to RateYourMusic

why
why
why

[MrC]

There were some fields that were multi-line (eg. bookmark), and not quoted properly, so spreadsheets failed to import them.  The "pipe"-separated fields "standard" was not well-defined or robust enough to handle MCs fields.

I requested the change, and Matt was concerned about breakage.  Focus blame my way...

[Scolex]

phalanthus I am puzzled by your "why why why"
it is still there it was just some formatting changes to comply with the standard used by programs like excel

[phalanthus]

phalanthus I am puzzled by your "why why why"
it is still there it was just some formatting changes to comply with the standard used by programs like excel

don't be puzzled !!

"The "pipe"-separated fields "standard" was not well-defined or robust enough to handle MCs fields" [from MrC]

The "pipe"-separated fields was exactly what i wanted - it is now useless from my point of view
i will revert to MediaCenter prior to 17.0.95 - very irritating

[phalanthus]

have reverted to 17.0.91 - maybe JRiver will look at this ??

[Matt]

Text output now conforms to RFC 4180 (standard CSV).

This is a good change in my opinion, and any reasonable parser should accept CSV.

[phalanthus]

 ?

not sure i totally understand this but there is nothing to stop me also installing MediaCenter 16 as well which will do what i want

[mark_h]

I share your pain on this one.  I hate changes that come out of the blue (who doesn't?), even if they are for the best in the long run (conformity) and this one caused me a lot of short term problems.  The pipe delimited format should have been retained as a separate option to allow those that rely it on continued smooth processing.

Not sure how you used the txt files, but I was able to update my processing scripts to handle the CSV format so, at least until the next unexpected change, I am back to full functionality with my external processing.

[MrC]

phalanthus, mark_h: it is fairly trivial to convert from one format to another.  Is there something you're both doing that makes this difficult?  Do you need some help in your process?

[Scolex]

As an example of what MrC is talking about I just converted a MC 17 csv (comma delimited) export to be identical to  MC 16 txt export (pipe delimited) in a matter of seconds in Notepad++
I was curious as to the format difference and it is just the pipes vs commas and the MC 16 format has some extra delimiters (see below)

MC 16

Code: [Select]

|Name|Artist|Album|Track #|Length|File Type|
|Helpless|Metallica|The $5.98 E.P. Garage Days Re-Revisited|1|6:36|flac|
|The Small Hours|Metallica|The $5.98 E.P. Garage Days Re-Revisited|2|6:40|flac|
MC 17

Code: [Select]

Name,Artist,Album,Track #,Length,File Type
Helpless,Metallica,The $5.98 E.P. Garage Days Re-Revisited,1,6:36,flac
The Small Hours,Metallica,The $5.98 E.P. Garage Days Re-Revisited,2,6:40,flac
Just as an FYI the playlist in question had 1420 files in it.

[rick.ca]

As an example of what MrC is talking about I just converted a MC 17 csv (comma delimited) export to be identical to  MC 16 txt export (pipe delimited) in a matter of seconds in Notepad++

Perhaps if you were to explain how, I could figure out how to do so with UltraEdit.

[Scolex]

Here is how I did it with Notepad++

Step 1:  (this adds the pipe at the beginning and end of each line)
search>replace
find what        \n
replace with   |\n|
check           extended, regular expression, whatever it says in UltraEdit
Replace all

step 2 (replaces all commas with pipes)
find what         ,
replace with     |
uncheck          extended, ...
replace all

Conversion is complete other than adding 1 pipe to the beginning of the first line.

PS I you have any commas in any of the fields you export there will be an additional step if you don't want to loose them.
I would explain that step but I can't remember the escape syntax for commas in csv off of the top of my head.

[mark_h]

I'm already done with converting.  Using notepad et al is out of the question - it has to be done with scripts.  Every week I dump multiple playlists from MC for processing with a whole bunch of scripts that relied on the pipe delimited format.  Every one of them was broken by the change and required modifying.  It wasn't a big problem, just very unwelcome, as I had to change my Sunday morning plans to accommodate the change.

JRiver need to remember that people actually use their software and that unannounced changes have consequences...

[mark_h]

PS I you have any commas in any of the fields you export there will be an additional step if you don't want to loose them.
I would explain that step but I can't remember the escape syntax for commas in csv off of the top of my head.

And this is exactly what I hit.  In my entire database I have ZERO pipes within fields, but I have plenty of commas and these broke my initial conversion attempts.  The complexity of parsing CSV isn't as simple as it first seems.  But as has been noted elsewhere, many programming languages now have libraries for handling the conversion for you.

[rick.ca]

I you have any commas in any of the fields you export there will be an additional step if you don't want to loose them.

This is what I wasn't sure how to handle, plus the fact memo fields would include line breaks. No problem, I was just curious if my fancy text editor would handle it. I can do whatever I might want to do in Excel.

[phalanthus]

my fix is to run MC15 in tandem