This is a song submission script for last.fm/audioscrobbler. The script mp3blstr2dscrbblr.sh (mp3blaster to audioscrobbler) analyses the status file of mp3blaster and delivers the gattered information to a perl script.

mp3blaster doesn't have a native plugin interface. Thus we need to retrieve the needed data through a config file (mp3blaster -f <file>). Then, cron calls this script every 30 seconds. The script checks if the song plays at least 30 seconds (giving the listener enough time to skip it) and at most 59 seconds (preventing multiple submissions). This check can be disabled by calling the script with the parameter --force.

• perl script: debian package libaudio-scrobbler-perl or script Audio::Scrobbler
• audio player mp3blaster
• date, stat
• cron (for periodic script calls)

#!/bin/sh
 
# version: 0.3
 
# mp3blaster status file (mp3blaster -f <file>)
MP3="/tmp/mp3blaster"
# perl audioscrobbler plugin directory
# (http://search.cpan.org/~roam/Audio-Scrobbler-0.01/lib/Audio/Scrobbler.pm)
#DIR="/home/scytheman/Audio-Scrobbler-0.01/lib"
# plugin binary/script
#BIN="../bin/scrobbler-helper"
BIN="scrobbler-helper"
 
# maximum retries if first submission failed
MAX_RETRIES=10
# seconds to wait before second submission
# this value increases during further retries
WAIT=10
 
# check for existing status file
if ! test -e $MP3
then
	echo "$MP3 doesn't exist"
	exit
fi
 
# first, check if the time of last modification is greather than 30s and less than 60s
# because this script will be executed every 30s, so we don't submit the same song twice
# and make sure we don't submit skipped tracks (user has 30s to skip the track)
# 
# we calculate the difference between last modification time (-> stat) and current time
# (-> date), both are seconds since 1970-01-01 00:00:00 UTC
 
# seconds since last modification
SSLM=$(echo "$(date "+%s") - $(stat -c "%Y" $MP3)" | bc)
if [ "$SSLM" -lt 30 ] || [ "$SSLM" -gt 59 ]
then
	echo "last modification time <30 or >60"
 
	# user may skip this test by passing '--force' to script
	if [ "$1" = "--force" ]
	then
		echo "ignoring."
	else
		exit
	fi
fi
 
# check if song is playing otherwise there is the risc of submitting a song twice
# because every time a song is paused, mp3blaster updates it's status file, thus
# changing also time of last modification
if ! grep -q "^status playing" $MP3
then
	echo "no song playing"
	exit
fi
 
# we need 2 + 7 arguments:
#  -P <client> -V <clientversion>
#  title, artist, album, year, comment, genre, length
# note:	- comment will be left empty
#	- genre will be specified globally
 
# unfortunately mp3blaster isn't recognized
CLIENT="mpd"
CLIVER="0.11"
 
# mp3blaster doesn't submit genre
GENRE="metal"
 
# now get all information from mp3blaster
title=$(grep "^title " $MP3 | cut -d ' ' -f2-)
artist=$(grep "^artist " $MP3 | cut -d ' ' -f2-)
album=$(grep "^album " $MP3 | cut -d ' ' -f2-)
year=$(grep "^year " $MP3 | cut -d ' ' -f2-)
length=$(grep "^length " $MP3 | cut -d ' ' -f2-)
 
# check if we have artist and title
# else print error message to stderr
if [ "$title" = "" ] || [ "$artist" = "" ]
then
	echo "error: $(grep "^path " $MP3 | cut -d ' ' -f2-) has no/invalid ID tag" 1>&2
	exit
fi
 
# and finally execute plugin
if ! [ "$DIR" == "" ]
then
	cd "$DIR"
fi
 
# creating alias and variable for multiple use
alias SUBMIT="$BIN -P $CLIENT -V $CLIVER \"$title\" \"$artist\" \"$album\" \"$year\" \"\" \"$GENRE\" \"$length\""
      SUBMIT="$BIN -P $CLIENT -V $CLIVER \"$title\" \"$artist\" \"$album\" \"$year\" \"\" \"$GENRE\" \"$length\""
 
echo
echo "executing $SUBMIT"
echo
SUBMIT
 
retval="$?"
# return values:
#    9 ?
#   22 bad hostname
#  114 couldn't complete handshake
#  115 connection timeout
#  255 couldn't complete handshake
 
# last submission failed, resubmit
if [ "$retval" == "9" ] || [ "$retval" == "22" ] || [ "$retval" == "114" ] || [ "$retval" == "115" ] || [ "$retval" == "255" ]
then
    for ((i = 1; i <= MAX_RETRIES; i++))
    do             
        sleep $WAIT
        echo "retry #$i: executing $SUBMIT"
        SUBMIT
 
        if [ "$?" == "0" ]
        then
            exit 0
        fi
 
        # doubling next wait, server may be down for any length of time
        let "WAIT = $WAIT * 2"
    done
    echo "couldn't submit song after $MAX_RETRIES retries: $?" 1>&2
elif [ "$retval" != "0" ]
then
 echo "return value: $retval" 1>&2
fi

• change variable MP3 if path to status file differs
• set DIR and change BIN if you want to use the script from the website instead of a distribution's package
• change GENRE if you listen to another music style
• create ~/.scrobbler-helper.conf

# ~/.scrobbler_helper.conf example file
# see `man scrobbler-helper' for detailed
# information
[global]
username=last.fm-user
password=password
# Optional (the default is UTF-8)
default_encoding=iso885915
# Optional (the default is "no")
fix_track_name=yes

For periodic calls of this script through cron you need to set up a cron job (see man 5 crontab). Run as user crontab -e and add the following lines:

# m h dom mon dow command
# cron runs only every minute, thus we need sleep here
*    *  *  *  *   nice -19 ~/scripts/mp3blstr2dscrbblr.sh > /dev/null & sleep 30s && nice -19 ~/scripts/mp3blstr2dscrbblr.sh > /dev/null
#

or

# m h dom mon dow command
# cron runs only every minute, thus we need sleep here
*    *  *  *  *                nice -19 ~/scripts/mp3blstr2dscrbblr.sh > /dev/null
*    *  *  *  *   sleep 30s && nice -19 ~/scripts/mp3blstr2dscrbblr.sh > /dev/null
#

This script is licensed under the GPL 3.0.

http://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html

v0.3 2007-09-25

• retry specified number of times if submission fails

v0.2 2006-11-06

• support for debian package libaudio-scrobbler-perl

v0.1 2006-06-16

• initial release