Read Me

CDIndex README
Andriy Lesyuk <s-andy@in.if.ua>

1. Introduction

CDIndex is CD/DVD media cataloging tool. Unlike many other tools
this tool is intended generally for command line.

CDIndex include the following binaries:
 o cdindex - tool for indexing media
 o cdbrowse - tool for integrating cd catalog into mc

2. Installation

This section describes how to install CDIndex.

2.1. Installing cdbrowse

To install cdbrowse add the following to the file
/usr/share/mc/extfs/extfs.ini

# CD index
cdi

After that copy cdbrowse to the /usr/share/mc/extfs/ dir and
create symlink cdi:

# ln -s cdbrowse cdi

Now add the following lines to mc.ext (/etc/mc/mc.ext):

# CD index
regex/\.cdi$
        Open=%cd %p#cdi

3. Project idea

This section describes how the project may look in future.
Currently the author does not have enough time to finish
it... :(

Main database is a binary file with extension .cdi which
contains only file structure. Symlinks information (path
to real file) is to be stored externally in .cdl file (.cdi
contains offset of the path, path is NULL-terminated).

All other information (audio, video etc) should be stored in
external files too. This of course will make the directory
containing catalog files almost unreadable but... This would
add flexibility to the tool. The tool is to be based on
extensions so if the corresponding externsion is not installed
this won't break the database (corresponding external file
will be just ignored). This would also allow someone to copy
only certain type of information (for example, he/she may just
skip video information).

CDIndex creates one database file for each media (there can
be more files with different extensions). This would allow
to copy only some medias to another location without need to
do some special conversion. All files may be listed in some
special upper-level catalog file (preferable in XML format).
This catalog file may contain also cover images for every
media or any other information.

Now about extension. The easiest and most flexible method is
to support external commands which should provide specially
formatted information to the core. But this method will work
slowly. An alternative is to use dynamically loaded modules.
I believe both methods should be used!

4. Known issues

This section lists known issues...

4.1. Segfault in libarchive when working with large ISO

Seems like libarchive cannot handle large (more than
0xFFFFFFFF bytes) ISO image.

"Workaround": large files are currently ignored.

4.2. Libarchive retrieves unordered data

Directories and files retrieved from libarchive are not
ordered. This requires searching parent entries in the CDI
database...

Workaround: parent entries are searched in db.

4.3. Libarchive archive_read_symlink returns garbage

Several first symbols of the string returned by
archive_read_symlink are garbage. This is related only to
ISO archives. Bug #419558.

Workaround: symlinks in ISO are ignored.

4.4. No info for parent directories for some ZIP archives

Libarchive does not return any upper directory info for
some ZIP archives for unknown reason (seems like they are
there).

Workaround: none.

5. TODO

5.1. Put more infor about the media into header

It would be good if cdindex would detect more info about
the media. For example - is cd multisession, does it have
Joilet and Rock Risge extensions, how much sessions (tracks)
etc.