SYNOPSIS

alsearch [OPTION]... search_option... --td=/some/path/to/create/links/

alsearch [OPTION]... search_option... -s

DESCRIPTION

You can use this script to search for songs in the AudioLink database. You can specify one or several options for the artist, composer, lyricist, album, etc., as the search criteria.

You can specify several search_option options to search for particular music files. See the section on ``search options'' for the list of options.

The search is not case sensitive. alsearch looks for strings as well as sub-strings in the fields being searched. See the ``examples'' section for more information.

Specifying the --td (target directory) option is mandatory for creating links to the actual files. This directory will contain the symbolic links to the actual audio files. The directory will be created if it doesn't exist.

Creating symbolic links to the actual files is analogous to creating playlists in audio-playing software. Symbolic links are actually just point to the actual files on the hard disk. This way of creating and storing playlists is very useful in several ways, some of which are:

1. Compatible across various audio players

Since the ``playlists'' are actually files represented on your hard disk, you can add whole directories generated by the alsearch program in the playlist of your audio software. If you switch to another music player for whatever reason, you still have your playlists. You don't have to bother about compatibility between the playlist formats of the two players.

2. Can be seen and operated upon in a file browser

As the symbolic links are present on a file-system, your playlist collection can be viewed by using normal file operations in the shell or using a GUI-based file browsing program. If the file browsing program is supports file traversals and symlinks, it'll show you the information of the actual song.

OPTIONS

--help

Brief usage information

--host=xxx

Connects to the MySQL server on the target host. Default is localhost.

--pass=xxx

Password for the database

-s, --na

Just displays the search results, doesn't create links (simulation mode)

--td=xxx

Target-directory in which to create links

--user=xxx

Username for the database

-v, --verbose

Displays some extra information. Useful for spotting errors and sending debug information.

SEARCH OPTIONS

--album=xxx

Search in the ``album'' field

--artist=xxx

Search in the artist/band/performers fields. You can give this option multiple times, for example:

"alsearch --artist=kishore --artist=asha --td=/songs/asha_kishore"

--comment=xxx

Search in the ``comment'' field

-c, --composer=xxx

Search in the ``composer'' field

--genre=xxx

Search in the ``genre'' field

-l, --lyricist=xxx

Search in the ``lyricist'' field

--title=xxx

Search in the ``title'' field

EXAMPLES

The options that take arguments can be specified in two ways:

"alsearch --artist="kishore kumar" --td=/songs/kishore"

"alsearch --artist "kishore kumar" --td /songs/kishore"

That is, the option and the argument can be separated with a ' ' (space) or an '=' (equal) sign.

In case you want to search for a string that has spaces, enclose the string in `` ''.

"alsearch --artist=kishore --composer=burman --lyricist=bakshi"

Will search for songs sung by *Kishore*, composed by *Burman* and written by *Bakshi*. Any name in the composer field which have ``burman'' in them will be matched. This means, it'll find songs composed by RD Burman, SD Burman, etc. This is true for all search fields.

AUTHOR

This manual page is written and maintained by Amit Shah <[email protected]>

COPYRIGHT

The AudioLink package is Copyright (C) 2003, Amit Shah <[email protected]>. All the programs and the documentation that come as part of AudioLink are licensed by the GNU General Public License v2 (GPLv2).