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8c6f4daa 1# CONTRIBUTING TO YT-DLP
2
3- [OPENING AN ISSUE](#opening-an-issue)
4 - [Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?](#is-the-description-of-the-issue-itself-sufficient)
5 - [Are you using the latest version?](#are-you-using-the-latest-version)
6 - [Is the issue already documented?](#is-the-issue-already-documented)
7 - [Why are existing options not enough?](#why-are-existing-options-not-enough)
8 - [Have you read and understood the changes, between youtube-dl and yt-dlp](#have-you-read-and-understood-the-changes-between-youtube-dl-and-yt-dlp)
9 - [Is there enough context in your bug report?](#is-there-enough-context-in-your-bug-report)
10 - [Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?](#does-the-issue-involve-one-problem-and-one-problem-only)
11 - [Is anyone going to need the feature?](#is-anyone-going-to-need-the-feature)
12 - [Is your question about yt-dlp?](#is-your-question-about-yt-dlp)
d80d98e7 13 - [Are you willing to share account details if needed?](#are-you-willing-to-share-account-details-if-needed)
08d30158 14 - [Is the website primarily used for piracy](#is-the-website-primarily-used-for-piracy)
8c6f4daa 15- [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
16 - [Adding new feature or making overarching changes](#adding-new-feature-or-making-overarching-changes)
17 - [Adding support for a new site](#adding-support-for-a-new-site)
18 - [yt-dlp coding conventions](#yt-dlp-coding-conventions)
19 - [Mandatory and optional metafields](#mandatory-and-optional-metafields)
20 - [Provide fallbacks](#provide-fallbacks)
21 - [Regular expressions](#regular-expressions)
22 - [Long lines policy](#long-lines-policy)
fc5fa964 23 - [Quotes](#quotes)
8c6f4daa 24 - [Inline values](#inline-values)
25 - [Collapse fallbacks](#collapse-fallbacks)
26 - [Trailing parentheses](#trailing-parentheses)
27 - [Use convenience conversion and parsing functions](#use-convenience-conversion-and-parsing-functions)
08d30158 28 - [My pull request is labeled pending-fixes](#my-pull-request-is-labeled-pending-fixes)
8c6f4daa 29- [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](README.md#embedding-yt-dlp)
30
31
32
33# OPENING AN ISSUE
34
35Bugs and suggestions should be reported at: [yt-dlp/yt-dlp/issues](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/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 our [discord server](https://discord.gg/H5MNcFW63r).
36
fc5fa964 37**Please include the full output of yt-dlp when run with `-vU`**, i.e. **add** `-vU` flag to **your command line**, copy the **whole** output and post it in the issue body wrapped in \`\`\` for better formatting. It should look similar to this:
8c6f4daa 38```
fc5fa964 39$ yt-dlp -vU <your command line>
8c6f4daa 40[debug] Command-line config: ['-v', 'demo.com']
41[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref UTF-8
42[debug] yt-dlp version 2021.09.25 (zip)
43[debug] Python version 3.8.10 (CPython 64bit) - Linux-5.4.0-74-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.29
44[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.2.4, ffprobe 4.2.4
86e8c894 45[debug] Proxy map: {}
8c6f4daa 46Current Build Hash 25cc412d1d3c0725a1f2f5b7e4682f6fb40e6d15f7024e96f7afd572e9919535
47yt-dlp is up to date (2021.09.25)
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48...
49```
bbd77068 50**Do not post screenshots of verbose logs; only plain text is acceptable.**
4c1a017e 51
8c6f4daa 52The output (including the first lines) contains important debugging information. Issues without the full output are often not reproducible and therefore will be closed as `incomplete`.
53
54The templates provided for the Issues, should be completed and **not removed**, this helps aide the resolution of the issue.
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55
56Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
57
58### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
59
8c6f4daa 60We 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.
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61
62So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
63
64- What the problem is
65- How it could be fixed
66- How your proposed solution would look like
67
8c6f4daa 68If 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're often too polite to close the issue outright, but the missing info makes misinterpretation likely. We often get frustrated by these issues, since the only possible way for us to move forward on them is to ask for clarification over and over.
e56190b3 69
fc5fa964 70For bug reports, this means that your report should contain the **complete** output of yt-dlp when called with the `-vU` 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.
e56190b3 71
8c6f4daa 72If the error is `ERROR: Unable to extract ...` and you cannot reproduce it from multiple countries, add `--write-pages` and upload the `.dump` files you get [somewhere](https://gist.github.com).
f848215d 73
df235dbb 74**Site support requests must contain an example URL**. An example URL is a URL you might want to download, like `https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc`. There should be an obvious video present. Except under very special circumstances, the main page of a video service (e.g. `https://www.youtube.com/`) is *not* an example URL.
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75
76### Are you using the latest version?
77
8c6f4daa 78Before reporting any issue, type `yt-dlp -U`. This should report that you're up-to-date. This goes for feature requests as well.
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79
80### Is the issue already documented?
81
8c6f4daa 82Make sure that someone has not already opened the issue you're trying to open. Search at the top of the window or browse the [GitHub Issues](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/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 2021.01.01. Here is some more information on the issue: ...". While some issues may be old, a new post into them often spurs rapid activity.
83
84Additionally, it is also helpful to see if the issue has already been documented in the [youtube-dl issue tracker](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl/issues). If similar issues have already been reported in youtube-dl (but not in our issue tracker), links to them can be included in your issue report here.
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85
86### Why are existing options not enough?
87
8c6f4daa 88Before requesting a new feature, please have a quick peek at [the list of supported options](README.md#usage-and-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 *not* solve your problem.
89
90### Have you read and understood the changes, between youtube-dl and yt-dlp
91
92There are many changes between youtube-dl and yt-dlp [(changes to default behavior)](README.md#differences-in-default-behavior), and some of the options available have a different behaviour in yt-dlp, or have been removed all together [(list of changes to options)](README.md#deprecated-options). Make sure you have read and understand the differences in the options and how this may impact your downloads before opening an issue.
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93
94### Is there enough context in your bug report?
95
96People 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).
97
98We 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.
99
100### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
101
102Some 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.
103
8c6f4daa 104In 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't post bug reports alongside feature requests. As a rule of thumb, a feature request does not include outputs of yt-dlp 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.
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105
106### Is anyone going to need the feature?
107
fdd6e18b 108Only 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.
e56190b3 109
8c6f4daa 110### Is your question about yt-dlp?
111
59a7a13e 112Some bug reports are completely unrelated to yt-dlp and relate to a different, or even the reporter's own, application. Please make sure that you are actually using yt-dlp. If you are using a UI for yt-dlp, report the bug to the maintainer of the actual application providing the UI. In general, if you are unable to provide the verbose log, you should not be opening the issue here.
8c6f4daa 113
114If the issue is with `youtube-dl` (the upstream fork of yt-dlp) and not with yt-dlp, the issue should be raised in the youtube-dl project.
115
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116### Are you willing to share account details if needed?
117
455a15e2 118The maintainers and potential contributors of the project often do not have an account for the website you are asking support for. So any developer interested in solving your issue may ask you for account details. It is your personal discretion whether you are willing to share the account in order for the developer to try and solve your issue. However, if you are unwilling or unable to provide details, they obviously cannot work on the issue and it cannot be solved unless some developer who both has an account and is willing/able to contribute decides to solve it.
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119
120By sharing an account with anyone, you agree to bear all risks associated with it. The maintainers and yt-dlp can't be held responsible for any misuse of the credentials.
121
122While these steps won't necessarily ensure that no misuse of the account takes place, these are still some good practices to follow.
123
59a7a13e 124- Look for people with `Member` (maintainers of the project) or `Contributor` (people who have previously contributed code) tag on their messages.
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125- Change the password before sharing the account to something random (use [this](https://passwordsgenerator.net/) if you don't have a random password generator).
126- Change the password after receiving the account back.
127
08d30158 128### Is the website primarily used for piracy?
129
130We follow [youtube-dl's policy](https://github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#can-you-add-support-for-this-anime-video-site-or-site-which-shows-current-movies-for-free) to not support services that is primarily used for infringing copyright. Additionally, it has been decided to not to support porn sites that specialize in deep fake. We also cannot support any service that serves only [DRM protected content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management).
131
8c6f4daa 132
e56190b3 133
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134
135# DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
136
8c6f4daa 137Most users do not need to build yt-dlp and can [download the builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases) or get them via [the other installation methods](README.md#installation).
e56190b3 138
8c6f4daa 139To run yt-dlp as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
e56190b3 140
8c6f4daa 141 python -m yt_dlp
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142
143To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
144
145 python -m unittest discover
146 python test/test_download.py
147 nosetests
060ac762 148 pytest
e56190b3 149
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150See item 6 of [new extractor tutorial](#adding-support-for-a-new-site) for how to run extractor specific test cases.
151
8c6f4daa 152If you want to create a build of yt-dlp yourself, you can follow the instructions [here](README.md#compile).
e56190b3 153
e56190b3 154
8c6f4daa 155## Adding new feature or making overarching changes
e56190b3 156
8c6f4daa 157Before you start writing code for implementing a new feature, open an issue explaining your feature request and atleast one use case. This allows the maintainers to decide whether such a feature is desired for the project in the first place, and will provide an avenue to discuss some implementation details. If you open a pull request for a new feature without discussing with us first, do not be surprised when we ask for large changes to the code, or even reject it outright.
158
0930b11f 159The same applies for changes to the documentation, code style, or overarching changes to the architecture
8c6f4daa 160
161
162## Adding support for a new site
163
164If you want to add support for a new site, first of all **make sure** this site is **not dedicated to [copyright infringement](https://www.github.com/ytdl-org/youtube-dl#can-you-add-support-for-this-anime-video-site-or-site-which-shows-current-movies-for-free)**. yt-dlp does **not support** such sites thus pull requests adding support for them **will be rejected**.
da665ddc 165
2021b650 166After you have ensured this site is distributing its content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
e56190b3 167
8c6f4daa 1681. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/fork)
1691. Check out the source code with:
bff98341 170
8c6f4daa 171 git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/yt-dlp.git
bff98341 172
8c6f4daa 1731. Start a new git branch with
bff98341 174
8c6f4daa 175 cd yt-dlp
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176 git checkout -b yourextractor
177
8c6f4daa 1781. Start with this simple template and save it to `yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
bff98341 179
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180 ```python
181 # coding: utf-8
e56190b3 182 from .common import InfoExtractor
8c6f4daa 183
184
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185 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
186 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
8c6f4daa 187 _TESTS = [{
df235dbb 188 'url': 'https://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
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189 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
190 'info_dict': {
191 'id': '42',
192 'ext': 'mp4',
193 'title': 'Video title goes here',
e7ea724c 194 'thumbnail': r're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
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195 # TODO more properties, either as:
196 # * A value
197 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
198 # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
199 # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
200 }
8c6f4daa 201 }]
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202
203 def _real_extract(self, url):
204 video_id = self._match_id(url)
205 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
8c6f4daa 206
e56190b3 207 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
ab03c0b4 208 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
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209
210 return {
211 'id': video_id,
212 'title': title,
213 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
ab03c0b4 214 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
8c6f4daa 215 # TODO more properties (see yt_dlp/extractor/common.py)
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216 }
217 ```
8c6f4daa 2181. Add an import in [`yt_dlp/extractor/extractors.py`](yt_dlp/extractor/extractors.py).
08d30158 2191. Run `python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor` (note that `YourExtractor` doesn't end with `IE`). This *should fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. If you decide to add more than one test, the tests will then be named `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_1`, `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_2`, etc. Note that tests with `only_matching` key in test's dict are not counted in. You can also run all the tests in one go with `TestDownload.test_YourExtractor_all`
9222c381 2201. Make sure you have atleast one test for your extractor. Even if all videos covered by the extractor are expected to be inaccessible for automated testing, tests should still be added with a `skip` parameter indicating why the particular test is disabled from running.
8c6f4daa 2211. Have a look at [`yt_dlp/extractor/common.py`](yt_dlp/extractor/common.py) for possible helper methods and a [detailed description of what your extractor should and may return](yt_dlp/extractor/common.py#L91-L426). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
2221. Make sure your code follows [yt-dlp coding conventions](#yt-dlp-coding-conventions) and check the code with [flake8](https://flake8.pycqa.org/en/latest/index.html#quickstart):
9d9daed4 223
8c6f4daa 224 $ flake8 yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py
9d9daed4 225
e75bb0d6 2261. Make sure your code works under all [Python](https://www.python.org/) versions supported by yt-dlp, namely CPython and PyPy for Python 3.6 and above. Backward compatibility is not required for even older versions of Python.
8c6f4daa 2271. When the tests pass, [add](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-add) the new files, [commit](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-commit) them and [push](https://git-scm.com/docs/git-push) the result, like this:
e56190b3 228
8c6f4daa 229 $ git add yt_dlp/extractor/extractors.py
230 $ git add yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py
231 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add extractor'
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232 $ git push origin yourextractor
233
8c6f4daa 2341. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
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235
236In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
237
b69fd25c 238**Tip:** To test extractors that require login information, create a file `test/local_parameters.json` and add `"usenetrc": true` or your username and password in it:
239```json
240{
241 "username": "your user name",
242 "password": "your password"
243}
244```
8c6f4daa 245
246## yt-dlp coding conventions
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247
248This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and future-proof extractor code.
249
8c6f4daa 250Extractors are very fragile by nature since they depend on the layout of the source data provided by 3rd party media hosters out of your control and this layout tends to change. As an extractor implementer your task is not only to write code that will extract media links and metadata correctly but also to minimize dependency on the source's layout and even to make the code foresee potential future changes and be ready for that. This is important because it will allow the extractor not to break on minor layout changes thus keeping old yt-dlp versions working. Even though this breakage issue may be easily fixed by a new version of yt-dlp, this could take some time, during which the the extractor will remain broken.
251
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252
253### Mandatory and optional metafields
254
8c6f4daa 255For extraction to work yt-dlp relies on metadata your extractor extracts and provides to yt-dlp expressed by an [information dictionary](yt_dlp/extractor/common.py#L91-L426) or simply *info dict*. Only the following meta fields in the *info dict* are considered mandatory for a successful extraction process by yt-dlp:
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256
257 - `id` (media identifier)
258 - `title` (media title)
259 - `url` (media download URL) or `formats`
260
fc08bdd6 261The 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. While all extractors must return a `title`, they must also allow it's extraction to be non-fatal.
262
455a15e2 263For pornographic sites, appropriate `age_limit` must also be returned.
264
fc08bdd6 265The extractor is allowed to return the info dict without url or formats in some special cases if it allows the user to extract usefull information with `--ignore-no-formats-error` - Eg: when the video is a live stream that has not started yet.
bff98341 266
8c6f4daa 267[Any field](yt_dlp/extractor/common.py#219-L426) apart from the aforementioned ones are considered **optional**. That means that extraction should be **tolerant** to situations when sources for these fields can potentially be unavailable (even if they are always available at the moment) and **future-proof** in order not to break the extraction of general purpose mandatory fields.
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268
269#### Example
270
271Say you have some source dictionary `meta` that you've fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key `summary`:
272
273```python
274meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)
275```
276
277Assume at this point `meta`'s layout is:
278
279```python
280{
bff98341 281 "summary": "some fancy summary text",
8c6f4daa 282 "user": {
283 "name": "uploader name"
284 },
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285 ...
286}
287```
288
2021b650 289Assume you want to extract `summary` and put it into the resulting info dict as `description`. Since `description` is an optional meta field you should be ready that this key may be missing from the `meta` dict, so that you should extract it like:
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290
291```python
292description = meta.get('summary') # correct
293```
294
295and not like:
296
297```python
298description = meta['summary'] # incorrect
299```
300
bbd77068 301The latter will break extraction process with `KeyError` if `summary` disappears from `meta` at some later time but with the former approach extraction will just go ahead with `description` set to `None` which is perfectly fine (remember `None` is equivalent to the absence of data).
bff98341 302
8c6f4daa 303
304If the data is nested, do not use `.get` chains, but instead make use of the utility functions `try_get` or `traverse_obj`
305
306Considering the above `meta` again, assume you want to extract `["user"]["name"]` and put it in the resulting info dict as `uploader`
307
308```python
309uploader = try_get(meta, lambda x: x['user']['name']) # correct
310```
311or
312```python
313uploader = traverse_obj(meta, ('user', 'name')) # correct
314```
315
316and not like:
317
318```python
319uploader = meta['user']['name'] # incorrect
320```
321or
322```python
323uploader = meta.get('user', {}).get('name') # incorrect
324```
325
326
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327Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting optional data from a webpage with `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex` or similar methods, for instance:
328
329```python
330description = self._search_regex(
331 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
332 webpage, 'description', fatal=False)
333```
334
335With `fatal` set to `False` if `_search_regex` fails to extract `description` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.
336
337You can also pass `default=<some fallback value>`, for example:
338
339```python
340description = self._search_regex(
341 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
342 webpage, 'description', default=None)
343```
344
bbd77068 345On failure this code will silently continue the extraction with `description` set to `None`. That is useful for metafields that may or may not be present.
8c6f4daa 346
347
348Another thing to remember is not to try to iterate over `None`
349
350Say you extracted a list of thumbnails into `thumbnail_data` using `try_get` and now want to iterate over them
351
352```python
353thumbnail_data = try_get(...)
354thumbnails = [{
355 'url': item['url']
356} for item in thumbnail_data or []] # correct
357```
358
359and not like:
360
361```python
362thumbnail_data = try_get(...)
363thumbnails = [{
364 'url': item['url']
365} for item in thumbnail_data] # incorrect
366```
367
368In the later case, `thumbnail_data` will be `None` if the field was not found and this will cause the loop `for item in thumbnail_data` to raise a fatal error. Using `for item in thumbnail_data or []` avoids this error and results in setting an empty list in `thumbnails` instead.
369
370
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371### Provide fallbacks
372
bbd77068 373When extracting metadata try to do so from multiple sources. For example if `title` 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.
bff98341 374
8c6f4daa 375
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376#### Example
377
bbd77068 378Say `meta` from the previous example has a `title` and you are about to extract it. Since `title` is a mandatory meta field you should end up with something like:
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379
380```python
381title = meta['title']
382```
383
2c6da7df 384If `title` disappears from `meta` in future due to some changes on the hoster's side the extraction would fail since `title` is mandatory. That's expected.
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385
386Assume that you have some another source you can extract `title` from, for example `og:title` HTML meta of a `webpage`. In this case you can provide a fallback scenario:
387
388```python
389title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)
390```
391
392This code will try to extract from `meta` first and if it fails it will try extracting `og:title` from a `webpage`.
393
8c6f4daa 394
d7c3af7a 395### Regular expressions
bff98341 396
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397#### Don't capture groups you don't use
398
399Capturing group must be an indication that it's used somewhere in the code. Any group that is not used must be non capturing.
400
401##### Example
402
403Don't capture id attribute name here since you can't use it for anything anyway.
404
405Correct:
406
407```python
408r'(?:id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
409```
410
411Incorrect:
412```python
413r'(id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
414```
415
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416#### Make regular expressions relaxed and flexible
417
418When using regular expressions try to write them fuzzy, relaxed and flexible, skipping insignificant parts that are more likely to change, allowing both single and double quotes for quoted values and so on.
8c6f4daa 419
d7c3af7a 420##### Example
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421
422Say you need to extract `title` from the following HTML code:
423
424```html
425<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>
426```
427
428The code for that task should look similar to:
429
430```python
8c6f4daa 431title = self._search_regex( # correct
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432 r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
433```
434
435Or even better:
436
437```python
8c6f4daa 438title = self._search_regex( # correct
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439 r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
440 webpage, 'title', group='title')
441```
442
bbd77068 443Note how you tolerate potential changes in the `style` attribute's value or switch from using double quotes to single for `class` attribute:
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444
445The code definitely should not look like:
446
447```python
8c6f4daa 448title = self._search_regex( # incorrect
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449 r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
450 webpage, 'title', group='title')
451```
452
8c6f4daa 453or even
454
455```python
456title = self._search_regex( # incorrect
457 r'<span style=".*?" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
458 webpage, 'title', group='title')
459```
460
461Here the presence or absence of other attributes including `style` is irrelevent for the data we need, and so the regex must not depend on it
462
463
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464### Long lines policy
465
fc5fa964 466There is a soft limit to keep lines of code under 100 characters long. This means it should be respected if possible and if it does not make readability and code maintenance worse. Sometimes, it may be reasonable to go upto 120 characters and sometimes even 80 can be unreadable. Keep in mind that this is not a hard limit and is just one of many tools to make the code more readable.
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467
468For example, you should **never** split long string literals like URLs or some other often copied entities over multiple lines to fit this limit:
469
fc5fa964 470Conversely, don't unecessarily split small lines further. As a rule of thumb, if removing the line split keeps the code under 80 characters, it should be a single line.
471
472##### Examples
473
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474Correct:
475
476```python
477'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list=PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
478```
479
480Incorrect:
481
482```python
483'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list='
484'PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
485```
486
fc5fa964 487Correct:
488
489```python
490uploader = traverse_obj(info, ('uploader', 'name'), ('author', 'fullname'))
491```
492
493Incorrect:
494
495```python
496uploader = traverse_obj(
497 info,
498 ('uploader', 'name'),
499 ('author', 'fullname'))
500```
501
502Correct:
503
504```python
505formats = self._extract_m3u8_formats(
506 m3u8_url, video_id, 'mp4', 'm3u8_native', m3u8_id='hls',
507 note='Downloading HD m3u8 information', errnote='Unable to download HD m3u8 information')
508```
509
510Incorrect:
511
512```python
513formats = self._extract_m3u8_formats(m3u8_url,
514 video_id,
515 'mp4',
516 'm3u8_native',
517 m3u8_id='hls',
518 note='Downloading HD m3u8 information',
519 errnote='Unable to download HD m3u8 information')
520```
521
522
523### Quotes
524
525Always use single quotes for strings (even if the string has `'`) and double quotes for docstrings. Use `'''` only for multi-line strings. An exception can be made if a string has multiple single quotes in it and escaping makes it significantly harder to read. For f-strings, use you can use double quotes on the inside. But avoid f-strings that have too many quotes inside.
526
527
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528### Inline values
529
530Extracting variables is acceptable for reducing code duplication and improving readability of complex expressions. However, you should avoid extracting variables used only once and moving them to opposite parts of the extractor file, which makes reading the linear flow difficult.
531
532#### Example
533
534Correct:
535
536```python
537title = self._html_search_regex(r'<title>([^<]+)</title>', webpage, 'title')
538```
539
540Incorrect:
541
542```python
543TITLE_RE = r'<title>([^<]+)</title>'
544# ...some lines of code...
545title = self._html_search_regex(TITLE_RE, webpage, 'title')
546```
547
8c6f4daa 548
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549### Collapse fallbacks
550
551Multiple fallback values can quickly become unwieldy. Collapse multiple fallback values into a single expression via a list of patterns.
552
553#### Example
554
555Good:
556
557```python
558description = self._html_search_meta(
559 ['og:description', 'description', 'twitter:description'],
560 webpage, 'description', default=None)
561```
562
563Unwieldy:
564
565```python
566description = (
567 self._og_search_description(webpage, default=None)
568 or self._html_search_meta('description', webpage, default=None)
569 or self._html_search_meta('twitter:description', webpage, default=None))
570```
571
572Methods supporting list of patterns are: `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex`, `_og_search_property`, `_html_search_meta`.
573
8c6f4daa 574
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575### Trailing parentheses
576
fc5fa964 577Always move trailing parentheses used for grouping/functions after the last argument. On the other hand, literal list/tuple/dict/set should closed be in a new line. Generators and list/dict comprehensions may use either style
def849e0 578
fc5fa964 579#### Examples
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580
581Correct:
582
583```python
fc5fa964 584url = try_get(
585 info,
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586 lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
587 list)
588```
fc5fa964 589Correct:
590
591```python
592url = try_get(info,
593 lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
594 list)
595```
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596
597Incorrect:
598
599```python
fc5fa964 600url = try_get(
601 info,
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602 lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
603 list,
604)
605```
606
fc5fa964 607Correct:
608
609```python
610f = {
611 'url': url,
612 'format_id': format_id,
613}
614```
615
616Incorrect:
617
618```python
619f = {'url': url,
620 'format_id': format_id}
621```
622
623Correct:
624
625```python
626formats = [process_formats(f) for f in format_data
627 if f.get('type') in ('hls', 'dash', 'direct') and f.get('downloadable')]
628```
629
630Correct:
631
632```python
633formats = [
634 process_formats(f) for f in format_data
635 if f.get('type') in ('hls', 'dash', 'direct') and f.get('downloadable')
636]
637```
638
8c6f4daa 639
e71be6ee 640### Use convenience conversion and parsing functions
bff98341 641
8c6f4daa 642Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from [`yt_dlp/utils.py`](yt_dlp/utils.py): `int_or_none`, `float_or_none`. Use them for string to number conversions as well.
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643
644Use `url_or_none` for safe URL processing.
645
8c6f4daa 646Use `try_get`, `dict_get` and `traverse_obj` for safe metadata extraction from parsed JSON.
532782ad 647
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648Use `unified_strdate` for uniform `upload_date` or any `YYYYMMDD` meta field extraction, `unified_timestamp` for uniform `timestamp` extraction, `parse_filesize` for `filesize` extraction, `parse_count` for count meta fields extraction, `parse_resolution`, `parse_duration` for `duration` extraction, `parse_age_limit` for `age_limit` extraction.
649
8c6f4daa 650Explore [`yt_dlp/utils.py`](yt_dlp/utils.py) for more useful convenience functions.
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651
652#### More examples
653
654##### Safely extract optional description from parsed JSON
655```python
8c6f4daa 656description = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'video', 'summary'), expected_type=str)
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657```
658
659##### Safely extract more optional metadata
660```python
8c6f4daa 661video = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'video', 0), default={}, expected_type=dict)
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662description = video.get('summary')
663duration = float_or_none(video.get('durationMs'), scale=1000)
664view_count = int_or_none(video.get('views'))
665```
bff98341 666
08d30158 667# My pull request is labeled pending-fixes
668
669The `pending-fixes` label is added when there are changes requested to a PR. When the necessary changes are made, the label should be removed. However, despite our best efforts, it may sometimes happen that the maintainer did not see the changes or forgot to remove the label. If your PR is still marked as `pending-fixes` a few days after all requested changes have been made, feel free to ping the maintainer who labeled your issue and ask them to re-review and remove the label.
670
8c6f4daa 671
672
673
674# EMBEDDING YT-DLP
675See [README.md#embedding-yt-dlp](README.md#embedding-yt-dlp) for instructions on how to embed yt-dlp in another Python program