Thread: Parsing ID3 tags from mp3

Hi all, i'm new here.

Just have a question regarding the parsing of ID3 tags. Basically i'm trying to write a program that parses the ID3 tags from an mp3. Just curious does anyone know of any good resources on how to do this?

Thanks

John

Originally Posted by JavaPF

Hello John and welcome to the Java programming forums

What do you mean by parse? Are you looking to print an mp3s ID3 tag information to the console?

Hey thanks for the reply

Yeah thats basically what i need to do. I need to print the ID3 tag info in which i'll probably use a GUI to display the info, but i'm a bit of a novice with java and was just curious if anyone knew of any good resources on how to do this.

Thanks

John

wow cheers for the quick response and the code.

i'll have a mess around with it and then get back to you

Thanks

Hi,

I recommend to use the JavaMusictag library: Java ID3 Tag Library

Download the jar from here.

You only need to add the jar to the class path and then you can write this very simple code:

public static void main(String[] args) throws IOException, TagException {
		File sourceFile = new File("C://song.mp3");
		MP3File mp3file = new MP3File(sourceFile);
		ID3v1 tag = mp3file.getID3v1Tag();
		System.out.println(tag.getAlbum());
		System.out.println(tag.getAlbumTitle());
		System.out.println(tag.getTitle());
	}

With this library you can handle specific tags version (ID3v1_1, ID3v2_4, etc).

Also is really easy to create id3 tags.

More info here: Introduction to tags

(JavaPF I hope you don't be upset because I provide another solution)

Thanks leandro,

I will be sure to check that out as well.

I'm open to all solutions! lol

Thanks again

Originally Posted by JavaPF

I haven't tested this code myself but try this:

import java.io.*; 
 
    public class ReadID3 { 
       public static void main(String[] arguments) { 
         try { 
            File song = new File("."); 
            File [] list = song.listFiles();
            for(int i=0;i<list.length;i++)
            {
               FileInputStream file = new FileInputStream(list[i]); 
               int size = (int)list[i].length(); 
               file.skip(size - 128); 
               byte[] last128 = new byte[128]; 
               file.read(last128); 
               String id3 = new String(last128); 
               String tag = id3.substring(0, 3); 
               if (tag.equals("TAG")) { 
                  System.out.println("Title: " + id3.substring(3, 32)); 
                  System.out.println("Artist: " + id3.substring(33, 62)); 
                  System.out.println("Album: " + id3.substring(63, 91)); 
                  System.out.println("Year: " + id3.substring(93, 97)); 
               } 
               else 
                  System.out.println(" does not contain" 
                     + " ID3 info.");  
               file.close();
            } 
         } 
             catch (Exception e) { 
               System.out.println("Error ? " + e.toString()); 
            }
 
      } 
   }

You need to place the .mp3 files in the application directory to get this program to work correctly.

Hey JavaPF

I appear to be getting the following error whenever i try to run the program:
Error ? java.lang.NullPointerException
Basically i've copied the mp3 into the directory were the program is saved and then input the file name were it says File song = new File(".");

Do you know why this is happening? The program itself doesn't bring up any errors when i build it, only when i run it.

Thanks

John

Ahh right i see, got you now

It worked, thanks

Originally Posted by JavaPF

Brilliant. Does it work as expected?

Yeah it did thanks. It printed the artist and track title which was all the file contained.

On the subject i was also trying to print the content of a .wmdb (windows media database) file. This is basically a file used to store information about all the media that has been played using wmp. I read that .wmdb files also store some media metadata in the form of ID3 tags, however it doesn't appear so when viewing the file with notepad. The file appears to store it in what looks like html tags. For instance the following is some data taken from the file:

< t r a c k >

< W M C o n t e n t I D > 8 f 2 7 9 1 6 6 - 2 6 1 d - 4 a 9 f - 8 a f 1 - 3 b d 0 e a 7 e 3 d 0 5 < / W M C o n t e n t I D >

< t r a c k T i t l e > S q u a r e O n e < / t r a c k T i t l e >

< u n i q u e F i l e I D > A M G p _ i d = P 4 3 5 0 2 3 ; A M G t _ i d = T 7 7 3 2 1 6 9 < / u n i q u e F i l e I D >

< t r a c k N u m b e r > 1 < / t r a c k N u m b e r >

< t r a c k P e r f o r m e r > C o l d p l a y < / t r a c k P e r f o r m e r >

< e x p l i c i t L y r i c s > 0 < / e x p l i c i t L y r i c s >

< / t r a c k >

The file however contains much more data than this, but the above is just an example of what you would expect to find.

I hope i'm not bugging you guys with these questions, but i'm just curious how would i go about printing this data?

Thanks

John

Originally Posted by JavaPF

This looks a lot like XML.

There is a tutorial on parsing XML here:

http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com...dom-parse.html

But you might be able to read the file in line by line and manipulate the data.

http://www.javaprogrammingforums.com...line-line.html

Cool i will check that out

Thanks again for your help

John