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I would like to

  1. search for "ytversion",

  2. replace it with "mqversion"

  3. in the title tag

of multiple mp3 files. I would like this process not edit/delete any other parts of the metadata content.

Is this possible? If yes, which tools would I have to use?

  1. I know I can search for a certain string in the metadata of multiple mp3 files. This is possible in EasyTag.

  2. However, how can I replace that particular string with another string for the pre-defined metadata field (the title field in the example above)?

I do not need to use EasyTag, it's just what I had installed at some point.

I suppose the answer to my question relies on regular expressions which I would definitely be ok with to use. It just that I do not know of any program (whether it has to be used in the CLI or has a GUI) that is capable to employ them or actually implements them.

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  • Please edit your question and tell us what this string is and what it should be replaced with. There are dozens of tools that can manipulate mp3 tags, but we can't help you unless you give a specific example we can test. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 10:44
  • @terdon I edited the post. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 11:05
  • Thanks, but where would this string be? In the genre tag? The title? The artist? All you need to do is loop over your files, print the relevant information, test if the string is there and then issue a command to change the tag. But we can only help you do this if we know what tag we're talking about so we can know what command would need to be issued. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 11:15
  • @terdon Thank you for your clarifying questions. I edited the post again. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 11:33

1 Answer 1

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1

You can do this using the id3v2 tool, which should be in the repositories for your operating system (note that this solution assumes GNU grep, the default if you are running Linux):

## Iterate over all file/dir names ending in mp3
for file in /path/to/dir/with/mp3/files/*mp3; do 
    ## read the title and save in the variable $title
    title=$(id3v2 -l "$file" | grep -oP '^(Title\s*|TIT2\s*.*\)):\K(.*?)(?=Artist:)'); 
    ## check if this title matches ytversion
    if [[ "$title" =~ "ytversion" ]]; then 
        ## If it does, replace ytversion with mqversion and 
        ## save in the new variable $newTitle
        newTitle=$(sed 's/ytversion/mqversion/g' <<<"$title") 
        ## Set the tite tag for this file to the value in $newTitle
        id3v2 -t "$newTitle" "$file" 
    fi
done

This si slightly complicated because the id3v2 tool prints the title and artist on the same line:

$ id3v2 -l foo.mp3 
id3v1 tag info for foo.mp3:
Title  : : title with mqversion string   Artist:                               
Album  :                                 Year:     , Genre: Unknown (255)
Comment:                                 Track: 0
id3v2 tag info for foo.mp3:
TENC (Encoded by): iTunes v7.0
TIT2 (Title/songname/content description): : title with mqversion string

The -o flag tells grep to only print the matching portion of a line, and the -P enables PCRE regular expressions. The regex is searching for either a line starting with Title followed by 0 or more whitespace characters and then an : (^Title\s*:) or a line starting with TIT2, and then having a ): (^TIT2\s*.*\)). Everything matched up to that point is then discarded by the \K. it then searches for the shortest string of characters (.*?) followed by Artist:.((?=Artist:); this is called a positive lookahead and matches the string you are looking for without having it count in the match, so it isn't printed by grep).

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  • Thank your for your reply. As far as I can tell, this does not seem to work as the line with "$title" =~ "ytversion" checks if the string is equal to "ytversion". It should check if it contains "ytversion". Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 12:44
  • ... uh. Also: $ id3v2 -l Chloe\ Wilson\ feat.\ NIEMY\ \&\ Ivan\ Gough\ -\ 200\ Years\ \(Ivan\ Gough\ \&\ Marcus\ Santoro\ Extended\ Remix\)\ \(ytversion\).mp3 gives me: id3v2 tag info for Chloe Wilson feat. NIEMY & Ivan Gough - 200 Years (Ivan Gough & Marcus Santoro Extended Remix) (ytversion).mp3: TIT2 (Title/songname/content description): 200 Years (Ivan Gough & Marcus Santoro Extended Remix) (ytversion). => At the beginning of the line, there is "TIT2" apparently. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 12:44
  • @henry no, =~ checks for a match. Try [[ "foo" =~ "o" ]] && echo yes || echo no and [[ "foo" =~ "b" ]] && echo yes || echo no. As for the TIT2 well, that's why you need to give specific examples! Anyway, try the updated answer. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 12:51
  • Comments are designed for US to ask YOU questions about your Question. You should Edit your question to add information. By updating your Question, and using the formatting buttons, you make all the information available to new readers. People shouldn't have to read a long series of comments to get the whole story. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 16:17
  • @waltinator if you want that comment to be read by the OP, you need to @ ping them. Otherwise, I'm the only one who gets notified since I wrote the answer. Commented Sep 20, 2020 at 16:55

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