id3lib-ruby

id3lib-ruby provides a Ruby interface to the id3lib C++ library for easily editing ID3 tags (v1 and v2) like with pyid3lib.

The class documentation starts at ID3Lib::Tag.

Features

  • Read and write ID3v1 and ID3v2 tags

  • Simple interface for adding, changing and removing frames

  • Quick access to common text frames like title and performer

  • Custom data frames like attached picture (APIC)

  • Pretty complete coverage of id3lib’s features

  • UTF-16 support (warning: id3lib writes broken UTF-16 frames)

  • Windows binary gem available

See TODO for planned features.

The CHANGES file contains a list of changes between versions.

Online Information

The home of id3lib-ruby is id3lib-ruby.rubyforge.org

Installation

Note that id3lib has to be installed before running any of the following commands, unless you use the Windows binary gem.

Installation through RubyGems:

gem install id3lib-ruby

Manual installation:

ruby setup.rb

Usage

require 'rubygems'
require 'id3lib'

# Load a tag from a file
tag = ID3Lib::Tag.new('talk.mp3')

# Get and set text frames with convenience methods
tag.title  #=> "Talk"
tag.album = 'X&Y'
tag.track = '5/13'

# Tag is a subclass of Array and each frame is a Hash
tag[0]
#=> { :id => :TPE1, :textenc => 0, :text => "Coldplay" }

# Get the number of frames
tag.length  #=> 7

# Remove all comment frames
tag.delete_if{ |frame| frame[:id] == :COMM }

# Get info about APIC frame to see which fields are allowed
ID3Lib::Info.frame(:APIC)
#=> [ 2, :APIC, "Attached picture",
#=>   [:textenc, :mimetype, :picturetype, :description, :data] ]

# Add an attached picture frame
cover = {
  :id          => :APIC,
  :mimetype    => 'image/jpeg',
  :picturetype => 3,
  :description => 'A pretty picture',
  :textenc     => 0,
  :data        => File.read('cover.jpg')
}
tag << cover

# Last but not least, apply changes
tag.update!

Licence

This library has Ruby’s licence:

www.ruby-lang.org/en/LICENSE.txt

Author

Robin Stocker <robinstocker at rubyforge.org>