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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)
13 - [Are you willing to share account details if needed?](#are-you-willing-to-share-account-details-if-needed)
14- [DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS](#developer-instructions)
15 - [Adding new feature or making overarching changes](#adding-new-feature-or-making-overarching-changes)
16 - [Adding support for a new site](#adding-support-for-a-new-site)
17 - [yt-dlp coding conventions](#yt-dlp-coding-conventions)
18 - [Mandatory and optional metafields](#mandatory-and-optional-metafields)
19 - [Provide fallbacks](#provide-fallbacks)
20 - [Regular expressions](#regular-expressions)
21 - [Long lines policy](#long-lines-policy)
22 - [Quotes](#quotes)
23 - [Inline values](#inline-values)
24 - [Collapse fallbacks](#collapse-fallbacks)
25 - [Trailing parentheses](#trailing-parentheses)
26 - [Use convenience conversion and parsing functions](#use-convenience-conversion-and-parsing-functions)
27- [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](README.md#embedding-yt-dlp)
28
29
30
31# OPENING AN ISSUE
32
33Bugs 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).
34
35**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:
36```
37$ yt-dlp -vU <your command line>
38[debug] Command-line config: ['-v', 'demo.com']
39[debug] Encodings: locale UTF-8, fs utf-8, out utf-8, pref UTF-8
40[debug] yt-dlp version 2021.09.25 (zip)
41[debug] Python version 3.8.10 (CPython 64bit) - Linux-5.4.0-74-generic-x86_64-with-glibc2.29
42[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg 4.2.4, ffprobe 4.2.4
43[debug] Proxy map: {}
44Current Build Hash 25cc412d1d3c0725a1f2f5b7e4682f6fb40e6d15f7024e96f7afd572e9919535
45yt-dlp is up to date (2021.09.25)
46...
47```
48**Do not post screenshots of verbose logs; only plain text is acceptable.**
49
50The 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`.
51
52The templates provided for the Issues, should be completed and **not removed**, this helps aide the resolution of the issue.
53
54Please re-read your issue once again to avoid a couple of common mistakes (you can and should use this as a checklist):
55
56### Is the description of the issue itself sufficient?
57
58We 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.
59
60So please elaborate on what feature you are requesting, or what bug you want to be fixed. Make sure that it's obvious
61
62- What the problem is
63- How it could be fixed
64- How your proposed solution would look like
65
66If 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.
67
68For 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.
69
70If 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).
71
72**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.
73
74### Are you using the latest version?
75
76Before reporting any issue, type `yt-dlp -U`. This should report that you're up-to-date. This goes for feature requests as well.
77
78### Is the issue already documented?
79
80Make 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.
81
82Additionally, 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.
83
84### Why are existing options not enough?
85
86Before 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.
87
88### Have you read and understood the changes, between youtube-dl and yt-dlp
89
90There 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.
91
92### Is there enough context in your bug report?
93
94People 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).
95
96We 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.
97
98### Does the issue involve one problem, and one problem only?
99
100Some 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.
101
102In 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.
103
104### Is anyone going to need the feature?
105
106Only 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.
107
108### Is your question about yt-dlp?
109
110Some 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.
111
112If 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.
113
114### Are you willing to share account details if needed?
115
116The 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.
117
118By 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.
119
120While these steps won't necessarily ensure that no misuse of the account takes place, these are still some good practices to follow.
121
122- Look for people with `Member` (maintainers of the project) or `Contributor` (people who have previously contributed code) tag on their messages.
123- Change the password before sharing the account to something random (use [this](https://passwordsgenerator.net/) if you don't have a random password generator).
124- Change the password after receiving the account back.
125
126
127
128
129# DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
130
131Most 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).
132
133To run yt-dlp as a developer, you don't need to build anything either. Simply execute
134
135 python -m yt_dlp
136
137To run the test, simply invoke your favorite test runner, or execute a test file directly; any of the following work:
138
139 python -m unittest discover
140 python test/test_download.py
141 nosetests
142 pytest
143
144See item 6 of [new extractor tutorial](#adding-support-for-a-new-site) for how to run extractor specific test cases.
145
146If you want to create a build of yt-dlp yourself, you can follow the instructions [here](README.md#compile).
147
148
149## Adding new feature or making overarching changes
150
151Before 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.
152
153The same applies for changes to the documentation, code style, or overarching changes to the architecture
154
155
156## Adding support for a new site
157
158If 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**.
159
160After you have ensured this site is distributing its content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
161
1621. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/fork)
1631. Check out the source code with:
164
165 git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/yt-dlp.git
166
1671. Start a new git branch with
168
169 cd yt-dlp
170 git checkout -b yourextractor
171
1721. Start with this simple template and save it to `yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
173
174 ```python
175 # coding: utf-8
176 from .common import InfoExtractor
177
178
179 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
180 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
181 _TESTS = [{
182 'url': 'https://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
183 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
184 'info_dict': {
185 'id': '42',
186 'ext': 'mp4',
187 'title': 'Video title goes here',
188 'thumbnail': r're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
189 # TODO more properties, either as:
190 # * A value
191 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with md5:
192 # * A regular expression; start the string with re:
193 # * Any Python type (for example int or float)
194 }
195 }]
196
197 def _real_extract(self, url):
198 video_id = self._match_id(url)
199 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
200
201 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
202 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
203
204 return {
205 'id': video_id,
206 'title': title,
207 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
208 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
209 # TODO more properties (see yt_dlp/extractor/common.py)
210 }
211 ```
2121. Add an import in [`yt_dlp/extractor/extractors.py`](yt_dlp/extractor/extractors.py).
2131. Run `python test/test_download.py TestDownload.test_YourExtractor`. 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`
2141. 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.
2151. 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.
2161. 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):
217
218 $ flake8 yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py
219
2201. 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.
2211. 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:
222
223 $ git add yt_dlp/extractor/extractors.py
224 $ git add yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py
225 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add extractor'
226 $ git push origin yourextractor
227
2281. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
229
230In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
231
232**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:
233```json
234{
235 "username": "your user name",
236 "password": "your password"
237}
238```
239
240## yt-dlp coding conventions
241
242This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and future-proof extractor code.
243
244Extractors 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.
245
246
247### Mandatory and optional metafields
248
249For 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:
250
251 - `id` (media identifier)
252 - `title` (media title)
253 - `url` (media download URL) or `formats`
254
255The 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.
256
257For pornographic sites, appropriate `age_limit` must also be returned.
258
259The 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.
260
261[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.
262
263#### Example
264
265Say you have some source dictionary `meta` that you've fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key `summary`:
266
267```python
268meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)
269```
270
271Assume at this point `meta`'s layout is:
272
273```python
274{
275 "summary": "some fancy summary text",
276 "user": {
277 "name": "uploader name"
278 },
279 ...
280}
281```
282
283Assume 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:
284
285```python
286description = meta.get('summary') # correct
287```
288
289and not like:
290
291```python
292description = meta['summary'] # incorrect
293```
294
295The 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).
296
297
298If the data is nested, do not use `.get` chains, but instead make use of the utility functions `try_get` or `traverse_obj`
299
300Considering the above `meta` again, assume you want to extract `["user"]["name"]` and put it in the resulting info dict as `uploader`
301
302```python
303uploader = try_get(meta, lambda x: x['user']['name']) # correct
304```
305or
306```python
307uploader = traverse_obj(meta, ('user', 'name')) # correct
308```
309
310and not like:
311
312```python
313uploader = meta['user']['name'] # incorrect
314```
315or
316```python
317uploader = meta.get('user', {}).get('name') # incorrect
318```
319
320
321Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting optional data from a webpage with `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex` or similar methods, for instance:
322
323```python
324description = self._search_regex(
325 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
326 webpage, 'description', fatal=False)
327```
328
329With `fatal` set to `False` if `_search_regex` fails to extract `description` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.
330
331You can also pass `default=<some fallback value>`, for example:
332
333```python
334description = self._search_regex(
335 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
336 webpage, 'description', default=None)
337```
338
339On 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.
340
341
342Another thing to remember is not to try to iterate over `None`
343
344Say you extracted a list of thumbnails into `thumbnail_data` using `try_get` and now want to iterate over them
345
346```python
347thumbnail_data = try_get(...)
348thumbnails = [{
349 'url': item['url']
350} for item in thumbnail_data or []] # correct
351```
352
353and not like:
354
355```python
356thumbnail_data = try_get(...)
357thumbnails = [{
358 'url': item['url']
359} for item in thumbnail_data] # incorrect
360```
361
362In 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.
363
364
365### Provide fallbacks
366
367When 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.
368
369
370#### Example
371
372Say `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:
373
374```python
375title = meta['title']
376```
377
378If `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.
379
380Assume 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:
381
382```python
383title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)
384```
385
386This code will try to extract from `meta` first and if it fails it will try extracting `og:title` from a `webpage`.
387
388
389### Regular expressions
390
391#### Don't capture groups you don't use
392
393Capturing group must be an indication that it's used somewhere in the code. Any group that is not used must be non capturing.
394
395##### Example
396
397Don't capture id attribute name here since you can't use it for anything anyway.
398
399Correct:
400
401```python
402r'(?:id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
403```
404
405Incorrect:
406```python
407r'(id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
408```
409
410#### Make regular expressions relaxed and flexible
411
412When 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.
413
414##### Example
415
416Say you need to extract `title` from the following HTML code:
417
418```html
419<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>
420```
421
422The code for that task should look similar to:
423
424```python
425title = self._search_regex( # correct
426 r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
427```
428
429Or even better:
430
431```python
432title = self._search_regex( # correct
433 r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
434 webpage, 'title', group='title')
435```
436
437Note how you tolerate potential changes in the `style` attribute's value or switch from using double quotes to single for `class` attribute:
438
439The code definitely should not look like:
440
441```python
442title = self._search_regex( # incorrect
443 r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
444 webpage, 'title', group='title')
445```
446
447or even
448
449```python
450title = self._search_regex( # incorrect
451 r'<span style=".*?" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
452 webpage, 'title', group='title')
453```
454
455Here 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
456
457
458### Long lines policy
459
460There 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.
461
462For example, you should **never** split long string literals like URLs or some other often copied entities over multiple lines to fit this limit:
463
464Conversely, 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.
465
466##### Examples
467
468Correct:
469
470```python
471'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list=PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
472```
473
474Incorrect:
475
476```python
477'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list='
478'PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
479```
480
481Correct:
482
483```python
484uploader = traverse_obj(info, ('uploader', 'name'), ('author', 'fullname'))
485```
486
487Incorrect:
488
489```python
490uploader = traverse_obj(
491 info,
492 ('uploader', 'name'),
493 ('author', 'fullname'))
494```
495
496Correct:
497
498```python
499formats = self._extract_m3u8_formats(
500 m3u8_url, video_id, 'mp4', 'm3u8_native', m3u8_id='hls',
501 note='Downloading HD m3u8 information', errnote='Unable to download HD m3u8 information')
502```
503
504Incorrect:
505
506```python
507formats = self._extract_m3u8_formats(m3u8_url,
508 video_id,
509 'mp4',
510 'm3u8_native',
511 m3u8_id='hls',
512 note='Downloading HD m3u8 information',
513 errnote='Unable to download HD m3u8 information')
514```
515
516
517### Quotes
518
519Always 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.
520
521
522### Inline values
523
524Extracting 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.
525
526#### Example
527
528Correct:
529
530```python
531title = self._html_search_regex(r'<title>([^<]+)</title>', webpage, 'title')
532```
533
534Incorrect:
535
536```python
537TITLE_RE = r'<title>([^<]+)</title>'
538# ...some lines of code...
539title = self._html_search_regex(TITLE_RE, webpage, 'title')
540```
541
542
543### Collapse fallbacks
544
545Multiple fallback values can quickly become unwieldy. Collapse multiple fallback values into a single expression via a list of patterns.
546
547#### Example
548
549Good:
550
551```python
552description = self._html_search_meta(
553 ['og:description', 'description', 'twitter:description'],
554 webpage, 'description', default=None)
555```
556
557Unwieldy:
558
559```python
560description = (
561 self._og_search_description(webpage, default=None)
562 or self._html_search_meta('description', webpage, default=None)
563 or self._html_search_meta('twitter:description', webpage, default=None))
564```
565
566Methods supporting list of patterns are: `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex`, `_og_search_property`, `_html_search_meta`.
567
568
569### Trailing parentheses
570
571Always 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
572
573#### Examples
574
575Correct:
576
577```python
578url = try_get(
579 info,
580 lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
581 list)
582```
583Correct:
584
585```python
586url = try_get(info,
587 lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
588 list)
589```
590
591Incorrect:
592
593```python
594url = try_get(
595 info,
596 lambda x: x['ResultSet']['Result'][0]['VideoUrlSet']['VideoUrl'],
597 list,
598)
599```
600
601Correct:
602
603```python
604f = {
605 'url': url,
606 'format_id': format_id,
607}
608```
609
610Incorrect:
611
612```python
613f = {'url': url,
614 'format_id': format_id}
615```
616
617Correct:
618
619```python
620formats = [process_formats(f) for f in format_data
621 if f.get('type') in ('hls', 'dash', 'direct') and f.get('downloadable')]
622```
623
624Correct:
625
626```python
627formats = [
628 process_formats(f) for f in format_data
629 if f.get('type') in ('hls', 'dash', 'direct') and f.get('downloadable')
630]
631```
632
633
634### Use convenience conversion and parsing functions
635
636Wrap 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.
637
638Use `url_or_none` for safe URL processing.
639
640Use `try_get`, `dict_get` and `traverse_obj` for safe metadata extraction from parsed JSON.
641
642Use `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.
643
644Explore [`yt_dlp/utils.py`](yt_dlp/utils.py) for more useful convenience functions.
645
646#### More examples
647
648##### Safely extract optional description from parsed JSON
649```python
650description = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'video', 'summary'), expected_type=str)
651```
652
653##### Safely extract more optional metadata
654```python
655video = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'video', 0), default={}, expected_type=dict)
656description = video.get('summary')
657duration = float_or_none(video.get('durationMs'), scale=1000)
658view_count = int_or_none(video.get('views'))
659```
660
661
662
663
664# EMBEDDING YT-DLP
665See [README.md#embedding-yt-dlp](README.md#embedding-yt-dlp) for instructions on how to embed yt-dlp in another Python program