+\f[C]url\f[] (media download URL) or \f[C]formats\f[]
+.PP
+In fact only the last option is technically mandatory (i.e.
+if you can\[aq]t figure out the download location of the media the
+extraction does not make any sense).
+But by convention youtube\-dl also treats \f[C]id\f[] and \f[C]title\f[]
+as mandatory.
+Thus the aforementioned metafields are the critical data that the
+extraction does not make any sense without and if any of them fail to be
+extracted then the extractor is considered completely broken.
+.PP
+Any
+field (https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/extractor/common.py#L149-L257)
+apart from the aforementioned ones are considered \f[B]optional\f[].
+That means that extraction should be \f[B]tolerant\f[] to situations
+when sources for these fields can potentially be unavailable (even if
+they are always available at the moment) and \f[B]future\-proof\f[] in
+order not to break the extraction of general purpose mandatory fields.
+.SS Example
+.PP
+Say you have some source dictionary \f[C]meta\f[] that you\[aq]ve
+fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key \f[C]summary\f[]:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+meta\ =\ self._download_json(url,\ video_id)
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+Assume at this point \f[C]meta\f[]\[aq]s layout is:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+{
+\ \ \ \ ...
+\ \ \ \ "summary":\ "some\ fancy\ summary\ text",
+\ \ \ \ ...
+}
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+Assume you want to extract \f[C]summary\f[] and put it into the
+resulting info dict as \f[C]description\f[].
+Since \f[C]description\f[] is an optional meta field you should be ready
+that this key may be missing from the \f[C]meta\f[] dict, so that you
+should extract it like:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+description\ =\ meta.get(\[aq]summary\[aq])\ \ #\ correct
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+and not like:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+description\ =\ meta[\[aq]summary\[aq]]\ \ #\ incorrect
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+The latter will break extraction process with \f[C]KeyError\f[] if
+\f[C]summary\f[] disappears from \f[C]meta\f[] at some later time but
+with the former approach extraction will just go ahead with
+\f[C]description\f[] set to \f[C]None\f[] which is perfectly fine
+(remember \f[C]None\f[] is equivalent to the absence of data).
+.PP
+Similarly, you should pass \f[C]fatal=False\f[] when extracting optional
+data from a webpage with \f[C]_search_regex\f[],
+\f[C]_html_search_regex\f[] or similar methods, for instance:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+description\ =\ self._search_regex(
+\ \ \ \ r\[aq]<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ webpage,\ \[aq]description\[aq],\ fatal=False)
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+With \f[C]fatal\f[] set to \f[C]False\f[] if \f[C]_search_regex\f[]
+fails to extract \f[C]description\f[] it will emit a warning and
+continue extraction.
+.PP
+You can also pass \f[C]default=<some\ fallback\ value>\f[], for example:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+description\ =\ self._search_regex(
+\ \ \ \ r\[aq]<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ webpage,\ \[aq]description\[aq],\ default=None)
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+On failure this code will silently continue the extraction with
+\f[C]description\f[] set to \f[C]None\f[].
+That is useful for metafields that may or may not be present.
+.SS Provide fallbacks
+.PP
+When extracting metadata try to do so from multiple sources.
+For example if \f[C]title\f[] is present in several places, try
+extracting from at least some of them.
+This makes it more future\-proof in case some of the sources become
+unavailable.
+.SS Example
+.PP
+Say \f[C]meta\f[] from the previous example has a \f[C]title\f[] and you
+are about to extract it.
+Since \f[C]title\f[] is a mandatory meta field you should end up with
+something like:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+title\ =\ meta[\[aq]title\[aq]]
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+If \f[C]title\f[] disappears from \f[C]meta\f[] in future due to some
+changes on the hoster\[aq]s side the extraction would fail since
+\f[C]title\f[] is mandatory.
+That\[aq]s expected.
+.PP
+Assume that you have some another source you can extract \f[C]title\f[]
+from, for example \f[C]og:title\f[] HTML meta of a \f[C]webpage\f[].
+In this case you can provide a fallback scenario:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+title\ =\ meta.get(\[aq]title\[aq])\ or\ self._og_search_title(webpage)
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+This code will try to extract from \f[C]meta\f[] first and if it fails
+it will try extracting \f[C]og:title\f[] from a \f[C]webpage\f[].
+.SS Make regular expressions flexible
+.PP
+When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy and flexible.
+.SS Example
+.PP
+Say you need to extract \f[C]title\f[] from the following HTML code:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+<span\ style="position:\ absolute;\ left:\ 910px;\ width:\ 90px;\ float:\ right;\ z\-index:\ 9999;"\ class="title">some\ fancy\ title</span>
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+The code for that task should look similar to:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+title\ =\ self._search_regex(
+\ \ \ \ r\[aq]<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)\[aq],\ webpage,\ \[aq]title\[aq])
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+Or even better:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+title\ =\ self._search_regex(
+\ \ \ \ r\[aq]<span[^>]+class=(["\\\[aq]])title\\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ webpage,\ \[aq]title\[aq],\ group=\[aq]title\[aq])
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+Note how you tolerate potential changes in the \f[C]style\f[]
+attribute\[aq]s value or switch from using double quotes to single for
+\f[C]class\f[] attribute:
+.PP
+The code definitely should not look like:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+title\ =\ self._search_regex(
+\ \ \ \ r\[aq]<span\ style="position:\ absolute;\ left:\ 910px;\ width:\ 90px;\ float:\ right;\ z\-index:\ 9999;"\ class="title">(.*?)</span>\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ webpage,\ \[aq]title\[aq],\ group=\[aq]title\[aq])
+\f[]
+.fi
+.SS Use safe conversion functions
+.PP
+Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from \f[C]utils\f[]:
+\f[C]int_or_none\f[], \f[C]float_or_none\f[].
+Use them for string to number conversions as well.
+.SH EMBEDDING YOUTUBE\-DL
+.PP
+youtube\-dl makes the best effort to be a good command\-line program,
+and thus should be callable from any programming language.
+If you encounter any problems parsing its output, feel free to create a
+report (https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues/new).
+.PP
+From a Python program, you can embed youtube\-dl in a more powerful
+fashion, like this:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+from\ __future__\ import\ unicode_literals
+import\ youtube_dl
+
+ydl_opts\ =\ {}
+with\ youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts)\ as\ ydl:
+\ \ \ \ ydl.download([\[aq]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc\[aq]])
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+Most likely, you\[aq]ll want to use various options.
+For a list of options available, have a look at
+\f[C]youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py\f[] (https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/youtube_dl/YoutubeDL.py#L129-L279).
+For a start, if you want to intercept youtube\-dl\[aq]s output, set a
+\f[C]logger\f[] object.
+.PP
+Here\[aq]s a more complete example of a program that outputs only errors
+(and a short message after the download is finished), and
+downloads/converts the video to an mp3 file:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+from\ __future__\ import\ unicode_literals
+import\ youtube_dl
+
+
+class\ MyLogger(object):
+\ \ \ \ def\ debug(self,\ msg):
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ pass
+
+\ \ \ \ def\ warning(self,\ msg):
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ pass
+
+\ \ \ \ def\ error(self,\ msg):
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ print(msg)
+
+
+def\ my_hook(d):
+\ \ \ \ if\ d[\[aq]status\[aq]]\ ==\ \[aq]finished\[aq]:
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ print(\[aq]Done\ downloading,\ now\ converting\ ...\[aq])
+
+
+ydl_opts\ =\ {
+\ \ \ \ \[aq]format\[aq]:\ \[aq]bestaudio/best\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ \[aq]postprocessors\[aq]:\ [{
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \[aq]key\[aq]:\ \[aq]FFmpegExtractAudio\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \[aq]preferredcodec\[aq]:\ \[aq]mp3\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ \ \ \ \ \[aq]preferredquality\[aq]:\ \[aq]192\[aq],
+\ \ \ \ }],
+\ \ \ \ \[aq]logger\[aq]:\ MyLogger(),
+\ \ \ \ \[aq]progress_hooks\[aq]:\ [my_hook],
+}
+with\ youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts)\ as\ ydl:
+\ \ \ \ ydl.download([\[aq]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc\[aq]])
+\f[]
+.fi
+.SH BUGS
+.PP
+Bugs and suggestions should be reported at:
+<https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/issues>.
+Unless you were prompted to or there is another pertinent reason (e.g.
+GitHub fails to accept the bug report), please do not send bug reports
+via personal email.
+For discussions, join us in the IRC channel
+#youtube\-dl (irc://chat.freenode.net/#youtube-dl) on freenode
+(webchat (http://webchat.freenode.net/?randomnick=1&channels=youtube-dl)).
+.PP
+\f[B]Please include the full output of youtube\-dl when run with
+\f[C]\-v\f[]\f[], i.e.
+\f[B]add\f[] \f[C]\-v\f[] flag to \f[B]your command line\f[], copy the
+\f[B]whole\f[] output and post it in the issue body wrapped in ``` for
+better formatting.
+It should look similar to this:
+.IP
+.nf
+\f[C]
+$\ youtube\-dl\ \-v\ <your\ command\ line>
+[debug]\ System\ config:\ []
+[debug]\ User\ config:\ []
+[debug]\ Command\-line\ args:\ [u\[aq]\-v\[aq],\ u\[aq]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj\[aq]]
+[debug]\ Encodings:\ locale\ cp1251,\ fs\ mbcs,\ out\ cp866,\ pref\ cp1251
+[debug]\ youtube\-dl\ version\ 2015.12.06
+[debug]\ Git\ HEAD:\ 135392e
+[debug]\ Python\ version\ 2.6.6\ \-\ Windows\-2003Server\-5.2.3790\-SP2
+[debug]\ exe\ versions:\ ffmpeg\ N\-75573\-g1d0487f,\ ffprobe\ N\-75573\-g1d0487f,\ rtmpdump\ 2.4
+[debug]\ Proxy\ map:\ {}
+\&...
+\f[]
+.fi
+.PP
+\f[B]Do not post screenshots of verbose logs; only plain text is
+acceptable.\f[]
+.PP
+The output (including the first lines) contains important debugging
+information.
+Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore
+do not get solved in short order, if ever.
+.PP
+Please re\-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common
+mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
+.SS Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
+.PP
+We often get issue reports that we cannot really decipher.
+While in most cases we eventually get the required information after
+asking back multiple times, this poses an unnecessary drain on our
+resources.
+Many contributors, including myself, are also not native speakers, so we
+may misread some parts.
+.PP
+So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you
+want to be fixed.
+Make sure that it\[aq]s obvious
+.IP \[bu] 2
+What the problem is
+.IP \[bu] 2
+How it could be fixed
+.IP \[bu] 2
+How your proposed solution would look like
+.PP
+If your report is shorter than two lines, it is almost certainly missing
+some of these, which makes it hard for us to respond to it.
+We\[aq]re often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing
+info makes misinterpretation likely.
+As a committer myself, I often get frustrated by these issues, since the
+only possible way for me to move forward on them is to ask for
+clarification over and over.
+.PP
+For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the
+\f[I]complete\f[] output of youtube\-dl when called with the
+\f[C]\-v\f[] flag.
+The error message you get for (most) bugs even says so, but you would
+not believe how many of our bug reports do not contain this information.
+.PP
+If your server has multiple IPs or you suspect censorship, adding
+\f[C]\-\-call\-home\f[] may be a good idea to get more diagnostics.
+If the error is \f[C]ERROR:\ Unable\ to\ extract\ ...\f[] and you cannot
+reproduce it from multiple countries, add \f[C]\-\-dump\-pages\f[]
+(warning: this will yield a rather large output, redirect it to the file
+\f[C]log.txt\f[] by adding \f[C]>log.txt\ 2>&1\f[] to your
+command\-line) or upload the \f[C]\&.dump\f[] files you get when you add
+\f[C]\-\-write\-pages\f[] somewhere (https://gist.github.com/).
+.PP
+\f[B]Site support requests must contain an example URL\f[].
+An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like
+\f[C]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc\f[].
+There should be an obvious video present.
+Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video
+service (e.g.
+\f[C]http://www.youtube.com/\f[]) is \f[I]not\f[] an example URL.
+.SS Are you using the latest version?
+.PP
+Before reporting any issue, type \f[C]youtube\-dl\ \-U\f[].
+This should report that you\[aq]re up\-to\-date.
+About 20% of the reports we receive are already fixed, but people are
+using outdated versions.
+This goes for feature requests as well.
+.SS Is the issue already documented?
+.PP
+Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you\[aq]re
+trying to open.
+Search at the top of the window or browse the GitHub
+Issues (https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/search?type=Issues) of this
+repository.
+If there is an issue, feel free to write something along the lines of
+"This affects me as well, with version 2015.01.01.
+Here is some more information on the issue: ...".
+While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid
+activity.
+.SS Why are existing options not enough?
+.PP
+Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at the list of
+supported
+options (https://github.com/rg3/youtube-dl/blob/master/README.md#options).
+Many feature requests are for features that actually exist already!
+Please, absolutely do show off your work in the issue report and detail
+how the existing similar options do \f[I]not\f[] solve your problem.
+.SS Is there enough context in your bug report?
+.PP
+People want to solve problems, and often think they do us a favor by
+breaking down their larger problems (e.g.
+wanting to skip already downloaded files) to a specific request (e.g.
+requesting us to look whether the file exists before downloading the
+info page).
+However, what often happens is that they break down the problem into two
+steps: One simple, and one impossible (or extremely complicated one).
+.PP
+We are then presented with a very complicated request when the original
+problem could be solved far easier, e.g.
+by recording the downloaded video IDs in a separate file.
+To avoid this, you must include the greater context where it is
+non\-obvious.
+In particular, every feature request that does not consist of adding
+support for a new site should contain a use case scenario that explains
+in what situation the missing feature would be useful.
+.SS Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
+.PP
+Some of our users seem to think there is a limit of issues they can or
+should open.
+There is no limit of issues they can or should open.
+While it may seem appealing to be able to dump all your issues into one
+ticket, that means that someone who solves one of your issues cannot
+mark the issue as closed.
+Typically, reporting a bunch of issues leads to the ticket lingering
+since nobody wants to attack that behemoth, until someone mercifully
+splits the issue into multiple ones.
+.PP
+In particular, every site support request issue should only pertain to
+services at one site (generally under a common domain, but always using
+the same backend technology).
+Do not request support for vimeo user videos, White house podcasts, and
+Google Plus pages in the same issue.
+Also, make sure that you don\[aq]t post bug reports alongside feature
+requests.
+As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of
+youtube\-dl that are not immediately related to the feature at hand.
+Do not post reports of a network error alongside the request for a new
+video service.
+.SS Is anyone going to need the feature?
+.PP
+Only post features that you (or an incapacitated friend you can
+personally talk to) require.
+Do not post features because they seem like a good idea.
+If they are really useful, they will be requested by someone who
+requires them.
+.SS Is your question about youtube\-dl?
+.PP
+It may sound strange, but some bug reports we receive are completely
+unrelated to youtube\-dl and relate to a different, or even the
+reporter\[aq]s own, application.
+Please make sure that you are actually using youtube\-dl.
+If you are using a UI for youtube\-dl, report the bug to the maintainer
+of the actual application providing the UI.
+On the other hand, if your UI for youtube\-dl fails in some way you
+believe is related to youtube\-dl, by all means, go ahead and report the
+bug.
+.SH COPYRIGHT
+.PP
+youtube\-dl is released into the public domain by the copyright holders.
Rapsys Git / youtubedl / blobdiff