id3ed(1)id3ed(1)NAMEid3ed - edit id3 description tags in mpeg3 files
SYNOPSISid3ed [-s songname] [-n artist] [-a album] [-y year] [-c comment] [-k
tracknum] [-g genre] [-q] [-SNAYCKG] [-l] [-L] [-r] [-i] [-v] files...
DESCRIPTIONid3ed edits the "id3" tag for mpeg layer3 files. The mpeg3 specifica‐
tion does not provide any method for storing song information, however
the id3 tag has become a standard method for doing this, and most mp3
players can read the tag. It will not cause any errors in players that
do not support it. The tag is 128 bytes long and is located at the end
of the file.
The -[snayckg] options can be used to set default values for each field
of the id3 tag. With -q, these options can be used to set some or all
of the id3 fields to a certain value without prompting for editing.
Specifing -q twice will disable the printing of which files are modi‐
fied.
The -[SNAYCKG] options allow you to edit only the tags you wish. Other
tags can still be set with their respective options. For example, if
you have a bunch of songs off of a single cd, most of the info is the
same, and you will probably only want to set the songname manually for
each track:
id3ed-n SomeArtist -a SomeAlbum -y Someyear -S *.mp3
Genres can be entered either using their name or code number. To match
by name however, it must match exactly (case insensitive). -l displays
a listing of known genres. -L displays the same list, but in a
row/column order rather than column/row. Unknown genres can be used by
specifying their code. 255 is the generally accepted code for
"unknown".
Tags can be removed from files with the -r option. Only files that
actually have a tag in them will be modified. The -q option will dis‐
able the printing of which files had tags removed. The -i option will
list the tags in files.
The version and license information can be viewed with the -v option.
NOTES
In interactive mode, if you do not have readline, specifying an empty
string is interpeted as keeping the value the same. If you wish to
actually clear the value of the current tag, use the EOT char, ctrl-d.
(If you are using readline, the input is automatically set to the cur‐
rent value, so erasing it and hitting enter is interpeted as clearing
the tag.)
BUGS
There is no sanity checking of mp3 files, id3ed will happily add tags
to any files you tell it to.
AUTHOR
Matt Mueller <donut@azstarnet.com>
The latest version, and other programs I have written, are available
from:
http://www.azstarnet.com/~donut/programs.html
CONTRIBUTORS
Peter Karlsson <pk@abc.se>
22 Feb 2000 id3ed(1)
