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================================================================================
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= APE Tag Specification, Version 2.000
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================================================================================
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Original Content (C) 2004, Frank Klemm <frank.klemm@elster.offl.uni-jena.de>
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Formatting / Editing (C) 2004, Scott Wheeler <wheeler@kde.org>
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================================================================================
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================================================================================
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1 - APE Tag General Structure
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2 - APE Tag Header / Footer Format
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4 - APE Tag Item Format
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5 - APE Tag Item Supported Keys
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6 - APE Tag Item Content
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7.1 - Data Types / UTF-8
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7.2 - Data Types / Dates
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7.3 - Data Types / Timestamps
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================================================================================
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= 1 - APE Tag General Structure
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================================================================================
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Member of Basic Components of SV8 Stream Note:
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It is strongly recommended that the data size be stored in the tags. The size
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should normally be in the roughly one kilobyte, never more than 8 kilobytes.
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Larger data should be stored externally using link entries. Linked data is much
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easier to process by normal programs, so for instance JPEG data should not be
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included inside the audio file.
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APE Tag Version 2.000 (with header, recommended):
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/================================\
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| APE Tag Header | 32 bytes |
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|-------------------|------------|
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| APE Tag Item 1 | > 10 bytes |
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| APE Tag Item 2 | > 10 bytes |
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| APE Tag Item n-1 | > 10 bytes |
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| APE Tag Item n | > 10 bytes |
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|-------------------|------------|
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| APE Tag Footer | 32 bytes |
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\================================/
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APE tag items should be sorted ascending by size. When streaming, parts of the
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APE tag may be dropped to reduce the danger of drop outs between tracks. This
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is not required, but is strongly recommended. It would be desirable for the i
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tems to be sorted by importance / size, but this is not feasible. This
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convention should only be broken when adding less important small items and it
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is not desirable to rewrite the entire tag. An APE tag at the end of a file
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(the recommended location) must have at least a footer; an APE tag at the
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beginning of a file (strongly discouraged) must have at least a header.
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APE Tag Version 1.000 (without header, deprecated)
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/================================\
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| APE Tag Item 1 | > 10 bytes |
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| APE Tag Item 2 | > 10 bytes |
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| APE Tag Item n-1 | > 10 bytes |
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| APE Tag Item n | > 10 bytes |
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|-------------------|------------|
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| APE Tag Footer | 32 bytes |
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\================================/
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================================================================================
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= 2 - APE Tag Header / Footer Format
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================================================================================
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Contains number, length and attributes of all tag items
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Header and Footer are different in 1 bit in the Tags Flags to distinguish
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/===========================================================================\
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| Preamble | 8 bytes | { 'A', 'P', 'E', 'T', 'A', 'G', 'E', 'X' } |
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|----------------|---------|------------------------------------------------|
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| Version Number | 4 bytes | 1000 = Version 1.000, 2000 = Version 2.000 |
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|----------------|---------|------------------------------------------------|
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| Tag Size | 4 bytes | Tag size in bytes including footer and all tag |
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| | | items excluding the header (for 1.000 |
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| | | compatibility) |
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|----------------|---------|------------------------------------------------|
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| Item Count | 4 bytes | Number of items in the tag |
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|----------------|---------|------------------------------------------------|
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| Tag Flags | 4 bytes | Global flags |
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|----------------|---------|------------------------------------------------|
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| Reserved | 8 bytes | Must be zeroed |
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\===========================================================================/
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================================================================================
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================================================================================
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The general flag structure for either items or headers / footers is the same.
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Bits 31, 30 and 29 are specific to headers / footers, whereas 2 through 0 are
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Note: APE Tags from Version 1.0 do not use any of the following. All flags in
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that version are zeroed and ignored when reading.
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/=================================================================\
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| Contains Header | Bit 31 | 1 - has header | 0 - no header |
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|-----------------|-------------|---------------------------------|
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| Contains Footer | Bit 30 | 1 - has footer | 0 - no footer |
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|-----------------|-------------|---------------------------------|
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| Is Header | Bit 29 | 1 - is header | 0 - is footer |
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|-----------------|-------------|---------------------------------|
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| Undefined | Bits 28 - 3 | Undefined, must be zeroed |
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|-----------------|-------------|---------------------------------|
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| Encoding | Bits 2 - 1 | 00 - UTF-8 |
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| | | 01 - Binary Data * |
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| | | 10 - External Reference ** |
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| | | 11 - Reserved |
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|-----------------|-------------|---------------------------------|
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| Read Only | Bit 0 | 1 - read only | 0 - read/write |
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\=================================================================/
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(*) Should be ignored by tools for editing text values
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(**) Allowed external reference formats:
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- http://host/directory/filename.ext
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- ftp://host/directory/filename.ext
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- /directory/filename.ext
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- DRIVE:/directory/filename.ext
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Note: External references are also UTF-8 encoded.
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================================================================================
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= 4 - APE Tag Item Format
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================================================================================
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APE Tag Items are stored as key-value pairs. APE Tags Item Key are case
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sensitive, however it is illegal to use keys which only differ in case and
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it is recommended that tag reading not be case sensitive.
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Every key can only occur (at most) once. It is not possible to repeat a key
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to signify updated contents.
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Tags can be partially or completely repeated in the streaming format. This
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makes it possible to display an artist and / or title if it was missed at the
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beginning of the stream. It is recommended that the important information like
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artist, album and title should occur approximately every 2 minutes in the
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stream and again 5 to 10 seconds before the end. However, care should be tak
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en not to replicate this information too often or during passages with high
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bitrate demands to avoid unnecessary drop-outs.
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/==============================================================================\
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| Content Size | 4 bytes | Length of the value in bytes |
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|----------------|---------------|---------------------------------------------|
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| Flags | 4 bytes | Item flags |
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|----------------|---------------|---------------------------------------------|
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| Key | 2 - 255 bytes | Item key |
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|----------------|---------------|---------------------------------------------|
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| Key Terminator | 1 byte | Null byte that indicates the end of the key |
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|----------------|---------------|---------------------------------------------|
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| Value | variable | Content (formatted according to the flags) |
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\==============================================================================/
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================================================================================
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Sections 5 - 7 haven't yet been converted from:
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http://www.personal.uni-jena.de/~pfk/mpp/sv8/apetag.html
added
removed
Frameworks/taglib/taglib/taglib/ape/ape-tag-format.txt
