While dabbling with libFLAC I tried out the FLAC__metadata_get_tags
function with this C program:
#include <stdio.h>
#include <FLAC/metadata.h>
int main() {
FLAC__StreamMetadata* metas;
if (FLAC__metadata_get_tags("/tmp/test.flac", &metas) && metas != NULL) {
for (int i = 0;; i++) {
printf("type: %d, length: %d\n", (metas+i)->type, (metas+i)->length);
if ((metas+i)->is_last) {
break;
}
}
FLAC__metadata_object_delete(metas);
}
}
When running this program multiple times, I get different outputs. There seems to be a varying number of metadata entries with type 0 (FLAC__METADATA_TYPE_STREAMINFO
). Sometimes I even get undefined types and negative lenghts.
Why is that? I would expect the program to always give the same output. I'm also not sure what a metadata entry with length 0 or even a negative length is supposed to mean.
Here is one example execution:
$ clang -I/usr/local/include -L/usr/local/lib -lFLAC -logg test.c && ./a.out
type: 4, length: 213
type: 0, length: 0
type: 0, length: 0
type: 11, length: 1083592000
type: -538976289, length: 0
FLAC__StreamMetadata
is not a list of metadata, it's one metadata, and only one TYPE_VORBIS_COMMENT
is filled.
I found code how to iterate over it, from https://isrc.iscas.ac.cn/gitlab/mirrors/github.com/musicplayerdaemon_mpd/-/blob/6419cc54ac200b217d99ee35d1e2d57dbfda3f55/src/decoder/flac_plugin.c :
#include <stdio.h>
#include <FLAC/metadata.h>
int main() {
FLAC__StreamMetadata* metas;
if (FLAC__metadata_get_tags("./test.flac", &metas) && metas != NULL) {
for (unsigned i = 0; i < metas->data.vorbis_comment.num_comments; i++) {
char *ptr;
if ((ptr = (char*)metas->data.vorbis_comment.comments[i].entry) != NULL) {
printf("%s\n", ptr);
}
}
FLAC__metadata_object_delete(metas);
}
}
On the .flac downloaded from https://helpguide.sony.net/high-res/sample1/v1/en/index.html outputs:
ALBUM=Bee Moved
TITLE=Bee Moved
ALBUMARTIST=Blue Monday FM
MRAT=0
ARTIST=Blue Monday FM
Overall, when in doubt - when the project is open-source, check sources.