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<table class="section1"><tr><td><a name="section"> About</a></td><td class="sectionnav"><a href="#section"><img class="sectionimg" src="images/arrow_dn.png"></a> <a href="#section"><img class="sectionimg" src="images/arrow_up.png"></a></td></tr></table>
<p class="noindent">
Libcddb is a C library to access data on a CDDB server (<a
href="http://freedb.org/">freedb.org</a>). It allows you to:
</p>
<ol>
<li>search the database for possible CD matches;</li>
<li>retrieve detailed information about a specific CD;</li>
<li>submit new CD entries to the database.</li>
</ol>
<p>
Libcddb supports both the custom CDDB protocol and tunnelling
the query and read operations over plain HTTP. It is also
possible to use an HTTP proxy server. If you want to speed
things up, you can make use of the built-in caching facility
provided by the library.
</p>
<table class="section1"><tr><td><a name="section"> News</a></td><td class="sectionnav"><a href="#section"><img class="sectionimg" src="images/arrow_dn.png"></a> <a href="#section"><img class="sectionimg" src="images/arrow_up.png"></a></td></tr></table>
<dl><dt>2006-10-15</dt><dd><img src="images/bullet.png"> IMPORTANT NOTE: Apparently the libcddb text search function is no
longer working. It seems that the new FreeDB.org owners have not
(yet) implemented a search page. Libcddb used the old search page
for this feature, and parses the HTML response page. Until a new
search page is available, libcddb search will return a server error
if you try to perform a text search.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> Version 1.3.0 of libcddb has been released. The new features are
described below.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> Support was added for the 'album' command of the freedb2.org servers
(<a href="API/cddb__cmd_8h.html#67a9d7df02df5191973eb7b0d97439df">cddb_album</a> and <a href="API/cddb__cmd_8h.html#6ccfa474b4fb202d51f5f4f3c62a4286">cddb_album_next</a> functions). This feature can be
used to do a text search for a certain album. It does not perform
any HTML page parsing but uses an extension of the CDDB protocol.
As input the function needs a disc structure with either the artist
or title filled in. The results are similar as for the query
command; i.e. a list of matching disc IDs together with their
categories. The example program also supports this feature.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> Functions where added to set (<a href="API/cddb_8h.html#2ff51d1de4cb01be1fe28df563335c4a">libcddb_set_flags</a>) or reset
(<a href="API/cddb_8h.html#906aeed0760a43806f9bc95eefc63b3f">libcddb_reset_flags</a>) some flags. These flags influence the
behaviour of the library. By default all flags are disabled.
Currently two flags are available.
If the <a href="API/cddb_8h.html#94803409ace01b82c8c374cba100d2a0bdda2a80163ac79b9f5e6ad0b7ae9e53">CDDB_F_EMPTY_STR</a> flag is set, the library will never return a
NULL pointer for a string. Instead the empty string will be
returned.
If the <a href="API/cddb_8h.html#94803409ace01b82c8c374cba100d2a05f8aba7d1ce9f532e361851d3920a664">CDDB_F_NO_TRACK_ARTIST</a> flag is set, the library will not
return the disc artist if the track artist is undefined. A NULL
pointer (or the empty string if <a href="API/cddb_8h.html#94803409ace01b82c8c374cba100d2a0bdda2a80163ac79b9f5e6ad0b7ae9e53">CDDB_F_EMPTY_STR</a> is set) will be
returned instead.
</dd><dt>2006-09-29</dt><dd><img src="images/bullet.png"> Version 1.2.2 of libcddb has been released. This version fixes a
problem in submitting data to a server. The correct character set is
now specified.
</dd><dt>2005-08-04</dt><dd><img src="images/bullet.png"> Version 1.2.1 of libcddb has been released.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> New in this version is the possibility to fine-tune the text search
feature. It is now possible to specify which fields of a disc
(artist name, disc title, track titles, other fields) and which
categories need to be considered when searching.
</dd><dt>2005-07-23</dt><dd><img src="images/bullet.png"> Version 1.2.0 of libcddb has been released.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> Support has been added for searching disc data using only a text
string. The API is similar to that of the query command.
</dd><dt>2005-07-09</dt><dd><img src="images/bullet.png"> Version 1.1.0 of libcddb has been released. For a complete list of
updates see the NEWS and ChangeLog files in the distribution
archive.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> IMPORTANT NOTE: This new version is not binary compatible with
previous versions. It should however be possible to just recompile
any software using libcddb and link it against this new library.
The API is backwards compatible so no changes to the software should
be necessary.
<br/><img src="images/bullet.png"> Support has been added for the FreeDB sites command. This allows you
to retrieve and use a list of mirror servers.
</dd></dl>
<table class="section1"><tr><td><a name="section"> Developing with libcddb</a></td><td class="sectionnav"><a href="#section"><img class="sectionimg" src="images/arrow_dn.png"></a> <a href="#section"><img class="sectionimg" src="images/arrow_up.png"></a></td></tr></table>
<p>
There are three places where you can look if you want to
integrate this library into a project of your own. First of
all, there is the <a href="tutorial.html">tutorial</a> on this
site.
Also on this site is the <a href="API/index.html">API
documentation</a> generated with doxygen. You can use this to
quickly check the correct syntax of a certain function.
Finally, in the source archive there is an example program.
This program uses most of the functionality available in
libcddb.
</p>
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Last modified: Sun Oct 15 14:49:16 CEST 2006
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