]> jfr.im git - yt-dlp.git/blob - CONTRIBUTING.md
[ie/TubiTv] Fix extractor (#9975)
[yt-dlp.git] / CONTRIBUTING.md
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 - [Is the website primarily used for piracy](#is-the-website-primarily-used-for-piracy)
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)
23 - [Quotes](#quotes)
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)
28 - [My pull request is labeled pending-fixes](#my-pull-request-is-labeled-pending-fixes)
29 - [EMBEDDING YT-DLP](README.md#embedding-yt-dlp)
30
31
32
33 # OPENING AN ISSUE
34
35 Bugs 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
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:
38 ```
39 $ yt-dlp -vU <your command line>
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
45 [debug] Proxy map: {}
46 Current Build Hash 25cc412d1d3c0725a1f2f5b7e4682f6fb40e6d15f7024e96f7afd572e9919535
47 yt-dlp is up to date (2021.09.25)
48 ...
49 ```
50 **Do not post screenshots of verbose logs; only plain text is acceptable.**
51
52 The 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
54 The templates provided for the Issues, should be completed and **not removed**, this helps aide the resolution of the issue.
55
56 Please 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
60 We 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.
61
62 So 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
68 If 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.
69
70 For 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.
71
72 If 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).
73
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.
75
76 ### Are you using the latest version?
77
78 Before reporting any issue, type `yt-dlp -U`. This should report that you're up-to-date. This goes for feature requests as well.
79
80 ### Is the issue already documented?
81
82 Make 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, subscribe to it to be notified when there is any progress. Unless you have something useful to add to the conversation, please refrain from commenting.
83
84 Additionally, 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.
85
86 ### Why are existing options not enough?
87
88 Before 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
92 There 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.
93
94 ### Is there enough context in your bug report?
95
96 People 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
98 We 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
102 Some 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
104 In 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.
105
106 ### Is anyone going to need the feature?
107
108 Only 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.
109
110 ### Is your question about yt-dlp?
111
112 Some 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.
113
114 If 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
116 ### Are you willing to share account details if needed?
117
118 The 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.
119
120 By 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
122 While these steps won't necessarily ensure that no misuse of the account takes place, these are still some good practices to follow.
123
124 - Look for people with `Member` (maintainers of the project) or `Contributor` (people who have previously contributed code) tag on their messages.
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
128 ### Is the website primarily used for piracy?
129
130 We 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 fakes. We also cannot support any service that serves only [DRM protected content](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Digital_rights_management).
131
132
133
134
135 # DEVELOPER INSTRUCTIONS
136
137 Most users do not need to build yt-dlp and can [download the builds](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/releases), get them via [the other installation methods](README.md#installation) or directly run it using `python -m yt_dlp`.
138
139 `yt-dlp` uses [`hatch`](<https://hatch.pypa.io>) as a project management tool.
140 You can easily install it using [`pipx`](<https://pipx.pypa.io>) via `pipx install hatch`, or else via `pip` or your package manager of choice. Make sure you are using at least version `1.10.0`, otherwise some functionality might not work as expected.
141
142 If you plan on contributing to `yt-dlp`, best practice is to start by running the following command:
143
144 ```shell
145 $ hatch run setup
146 ```
147
148 The above command will install a `pre-commit` hook so that required checks/fixes (linting, formatting) will run automatically before each commit. If any code needs to be linted or formatted, then the commit will be blocked and the necessary changes will be made; you should review all edits and re-commit the fixed version.
149
150 After this you can use `hatch shell` to enable a virtual environment that has `yt-dlp` and its development dependencies installed.
151
152 In addition, the following script commands can be used to run simple tasks such as linting or testing (without having to run `hatch shell` first):
153 * `hatch fmt`: Automatically fix linter violations and apply required code formatting changes
154 * See `hatch fmt --help` for more info
155 * `hatch test`: Run extractor or core tests
156 * See `hatch test --help` for more info
157
158 See item 6 of [new extractor tutorial](#adding-support-for-a-new-site) for how to run extractor specific test cases.
159
160 While it is strongly recommended to use `hatch` for yt-dlp development, if you are unable to do so, alternatively you can manually create a virtual environment and use the following commands:
161
162 ```shell
163 # To only install development dependencies:
164 $ python -m devscripts.install_deps --include dev
165
166 # Or, for an editable install plus dev dependencies:
167 $ python -m pip install -e ".[default,dev]"
168
169 # To setup the pre-commit hook:
170 $ pre-commit install
171
172 # To be used in place of `hatch test`:
173 $ python -m devscripts.run_tests
174
175 # To be used in place of `hatch fmt`:
176 $ ruff check --fix .
177 $ autopep8 --in-place .
178
179 # To only check code instead of applying fixes:
180 $ ruff check .
181 $ autopep8 --diff .
182 ```
183
184 If you want to create a build of yt-dlp yourself, you can follow the instructions [here](README.md#compile).
185
186
187 ## Adding new feature or making overarching changes
188
189 Before you start writing code for implementing a new feature, open an issue explaining your feature request and at least 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.
190
191 The same applies for changes to the documentation, code style, or overarching changes to the architecture
192
193
194 ## Adding support for a new site
195
196 If you want to add support for a new site, first of all **make sure** this site is **not dedicated to [copyright infringement](#is-the-website-primarily-used-for-piracy)**. yt-dlp does **not support** such sites thus pull requests adding support for them **will be rejected**.
197
198 After you have ensured this site is distributing its content legally, you can follow this quick list (assuming your service is called `yourextractor`):
199
200 1. [Fork this repository](https://github.com/yt-dlp/yt-dlp/fork)
201 1. Check out the source code with:
202
203 ```shell
204 $ git clone git@github.com:YOUR_GITHUB_USERNAME/yt-dlp.git
205 ```
206
207 1. Start a new git branch with
208
209 ```shell
210 $ cd yt-dlp
211 $ git checkout -b yourextractor
212 ```
213
214 1. Start with this simple template and save it to `yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py`:
215
216 ```python
217 from .common import InfoExtractor
218
219
220 class YourExtractorIE(InfoExtractor):
221 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?yourextractor\.com/watch/(?P<id>[0-9]+)'
222 _TESTS = [{
223 'url': 'https://yourextractor.com/watch/42',
224 'md5': 'TODO: md5 sum of the first 10241 bytes of the video file (use --test)',
225 'info_dict': {
226 # For videos, only the 'id' and 'ext' fields are required to RUN the test:
227 'id': '42',
228 'ext': 'mp4',
229 # Then if the test run fails, it will output the missing/incorrect fields.
230 # Properties can be added as:
231 # * A value, e.g.
232 # 'title': 'Video title goes here',
233 # * MD5 checksum; start the string with 'md5:', e.g.
234 # 'description': 'md5:098f6bcd4621d373cade4e832627b4f6',
235 # * A regular expression; start the string with 're:', e.g.
236 # 'thumbnail': r're:^https?://.*\.jpg$',
237 # * A count of elements in a list; start the string with 'count:', e.g.
238 # 'tags': 'count:10',
239 # * Any Python type, e.g.
240 # 'view_count': int,
241 }
242 }]
243
244 def _real_extract(self, url):
245 video_id = self._match_id(url)
246 webpage = self._download_webpage(url, video_id)
247
248 # TODO more code goes here, for example ...
249 title = self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>(.+?)</h1>', webpage, 'title')
250
251 return {
252 'id': video_id,
253 'title': title,
254 'description': self._og_search_description(webpage),
255 'uploader': self._search_regex(r'<div[^>]+id="uploader"[^>]*>([^<]+)<', webpage, 'uploader', fatal=False),
256 # TODO more properties (see yt_dlp/extractor/common.py)
257 }
258 ```
259 1. Add an import in [`yt_dlp/extractor/_extractors.py`](yt_dlp/extractor/_extractors.py). Note that the class name must end with `IE`. Also note that when adding a parenthesized import group, the last import in the group must have a trailing comma in order for this formatting to be respected by our code formatter.
260 1. Run `hatch test YourExtractor`. This *may fail* at first, but you can continually re-run it until you're done. Upon failure, it will output the missing fields and/or correct values which you can copy. If you decide to add more than one test, the tests will then be named `YourExtractor`, `YourExtractor_1`, `YourExtractor_2`, etc. Note that tests with an `only_matching` key in the test's dict are not included in the count. You can also run all the tests in one go with `YourExtractor_all`
261 1. Make sure you have at least 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.
262 1. 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#L119-L440). Add tests and code for as many as you want.
263 1. Make sure your code follows [yt-dlp coding conventions](#yt-dlp-coding-conventions), passes [ruff](https://docs.astral.sh/ruff/tutorial/#getting-started) code checks and is properly formatted:
264
265 ```shell
266 $ hatch fmt --check
267 ```
268
269 You can use `hatch fmt` to automatically fix problems.
270
271 1. Make sure your code works under all [Python](https://www.python.org/) versions supported by yt-dlp, namely CPython and PyPy for Python 3.8 and above. Backward compatibility is not required for even older versions of Python.
272 1. 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:
273
274 ```shell
275 $ git add yt_dlp/extractor/_extractors.py
276 $ git add yt_dlp/extractor/yourextractor.py
277 $ git commit -m '[yourextractor] Add extractor'
278 $ git push origin yourextractor
279 ```
280
281 1. Finally, [create a pull request](https://help.github.com/articles/creating-a-pull-request). We'll then review and merge it.
282
283 In any case, thank you very much for your contributions!
284
285 **Tip:** To test extractors that require login information, create a file `test/local_parameters.json` and add `"usenetrc": true` or your `username`&`password` or `cookiefile`/`cookiesfrombrowser` in it:
286 ```json
287 {
288 "username": "your user name",
289 "password": "your password"
290 }
291 ```
292
293 ## yt-dlp coding conventions
294
295 This section introduces a guide lines for writing idiomatic, robust and future-proof extractor code.
296
297 Extractors 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 extractor will remain broken.
298
299
300 ### Mandatory and optional metafields
301
302 For 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#L119-L440) or simply *info dict*. Only the following meta fields in the *info dict* are considered mandatory for a successful extraction process by yt-dlp:
303
304 - `id` (media identifier)
305 - `title` (media title)
306 - `url` (media download URL) or `formats`
307
308 The 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.
309
310 For pornographic sites, appropriate `age_limit` must also be returned.
311
312 The extractor is allowed to return the info dict without url or formats in some special cases if it allows the user to extract useful information with `--ignore-no-formats-error` - e.g. when the video is a live stream that has not started yet.
313
314 [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.
315
316 #### Example
317
318 Say you have some source dictionary `meta` that you've fetched as JSON with HTTP request and it has a key `summary`:
319
320 ```python
321 meta = self._download_json(url, video_id)
322 ```
323
324 Assume at this point `meta`'s layout is:
325
326 ```python
327 {
328 "summary": "some fancy summary text",
329 "user": {
330 "name": "uploader name"
331 },
332 ...
333 }
334 ```
335
336 Assume 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:
337
338 ```python
339 description = meta.get('summary') # correct
340 ```
341
342 and not like:
343
344 ```python
345 description = meta['summary'] # incorrect
346 ```
347
348 The 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).
349
350
351 If the data is nested, do not use `.get` chains, but instead make use of `traverse_obj`.
352
353 Considering the above `meta` again, assume you want to extract `["user"]["name"]` and put it in the resulting info dict as `uploader`
354
355 ```python
356 uploader = traverse_obj(meta, ('user', 'name')) # correct
357 ```
358
359 and not like:
360
361 ```python
362 uploader = meta['user']['name'] # incorrect
363 ```
364 or
365 ```python
366 uploader = meta.get('user', {}).get('name') # incorrect
367 ```
368 or
369 ```python
370 uploader = try_get(meta, lambda x: x['user']['name']) # old utility
371 ```
372
373
374 Similarly, you should pass `fatal=False` when extracting optional data from a webpage with `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex` or similar methods, for instance:
375
376 ```python
377 description = self._search_regex(
378 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
379 webpage, 'description', fatal=False)
380 ```
381
382 With `fatal` set to `False` if `_search_regex` fails to extract `description` it will emit a warning and continue extraction.
383
384 You can also pass `default=<some fallback value>`, for example:
385
386 ```python
387 description = self._search_regex(
388 r'<span[^>]+id="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)<',
389 webpage, 'description', default=None)
390 ```
391
392 On 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.
393
394
395 Another thing to remember is not to try to iterate over `None`
396
397 Say you extracted a list of thumbnails into `thumbnail_data` and want to iterate over them
398
399 ```python
400 thumbnail_data = data.get('thumbnails') or []
401 thumbnails = [{
402 'url': item['url'],
403 'height': item.get('h'),
404 } for item in thumbnail_data if item.get('url')] # correct
405 ```
406
407 and not like:
408
409 ```python
410 thumbnail_data = data.get('thumbnails')
411 thumbnails = [{
412 'url': item['url'],
413 'height': item.get('h'),
414 } for item in thumbnail_data] # incorrect
415 ```
416
417 In this 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 `or []` avoids this error and results in setting an empty list in `thumbnails` instead.
418
419 Alternately, this can be further simplified by using `traverse_obj`
420
421 ```python
422 thumbnails = [{
423 'url': item['url'],
424 'height': item.get('h'),
425 } for item in traverse_obj(data, ('thumbnails', lambda _, v: v['url']))]
426 ```
427
428 or, even better,
429
430 ```python
431 thumbnails = traverse_obj(data, ('thumbnails', ..., {'url': 'url', 'height': 'h'}))
432 ```
433
434 ### Provide fallbacks
435
436 When 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.
437
438
439 #### Example
440
441 Say `meta` from the previous example has a `title` and you are about to extract it like:
442
443 ```python
444 title = meta.get('title')
445 ```
446
447 If `title` disappears from `meta` in future due to some changes on the hoster's side the title extraction would fail.
448
449 Assume 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 like:
450
451 ```python
452 title = meta.get('title') or self._og_search_title(webpage)
453 ```
454
455 This code will try to extract from `meta` first and if it fails it will try extracting `og:title` from a `webpage`, making the extractor more robust.
456
457
458 ### Regular expressions
459
460 #### Don't capture groups you don't use
461
462 Capturing group must be an indication that it's used somewhere in the code. Any group that is not used must be non capturing.
463
464 ##### Example
465
466 Don't capture id attribute name here since you can't use it for anything anyway.
467
468 Correct:
469
470 ```python
471 r'(?:id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
472 ```
473
474 Incorrect:
475 ```python
476 r'(id|ID)=(?P<id>\d+)'
477 ```
478
479 #### Make regular expressions relaxed and flexible
480
481 When 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.
482
483 ##### Example
484
485 Say you need to extract `title` from the following HTML code:
486
487 ```html
488 <span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">some fancy title</span>
489 ```
490
491 The code for that task should look similar to:
492
493 ```python
494 title = self._search_regex( # correct
495 r'<span[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
496 ```
497
498 which tolerates potential changes in the `style` attribute's value. Or even better:
499
500 ```python
501 title = self._search_regex( # correct
502 r'<span[^>]+class=(["\'])title\1[^>]*>(?P<title>[^<]+)',
503 webpage, 'title', group='title')
504 ```
505
506 which also handles both single quotes in addition to double quotes.
507
508 The code definitely should not look like:
509
510 ```python
511 title = self._search_regex( # incorrect
512 r'<span style="position: absolute; left: 910px; width: 90px; float: right; z-index: 9999;" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
513 webpage, 'title', group='title')
514 ```
515
516 or even
517
518 ```python
519 title = self._search_regex( # incorrect
520 r'<span style=".*?" class="title">(.*?)</span>',
521 webpage, 'title', group='title')
522 ```
523
524 Here the presence or absence of other attributes including `style` is irrelevant for the data we need, and so the regex must not depend on it
525
526
527 #### Keep the regular expressions as simple as possible, but no simpler
528
529 Since many extractors deal with unstructured data provided by websites, we will often need to use very complex regular expressions. You should try to use the *simplest* regex that can accomplish what you want. In other words, each part of the regex must have a reason for existing. If you can take out a symbol and the functionality does not change, the symbol should not be there.
530
531 ##### Example
532
533 Correct:
534
535 ```python
536 _VALID_URL = r'https?://(?:www\.)?website\.com/(?:[^/]+/){3,4}(?P<display_id>[^/]+)_(?P<id>\d+)'
537 ```
538
539 Incorrect:
540
541 ```python
542 _VALID_URL = r'https?:\/\/(?:www\.)?website\.com\/[^\/]+/[^\/]+/[^\/]+(?:\/[^\/]+)?\/(?P<display_id>[^\/]+)_(?P<id>\d+)'
543 ```
544
545 #### Do not misuse `.` and use the correct quantifiers (`+*?`)
546
547 Avoid creating regexes that over-match because of wrong use of quantifiers. Also try to avoid non-greedy matching (`?`) where possible since they could easily result in [catastrophic backtracking](https://www.regular-expressions.info/catastrophic.html)
548
549 Correct:
550
551 ```python
552 title = self._search_regex(r'<span\b[^>]+class="title"[^>]*>([^<]+)', webpage, 'title')
553 ```
554
555 Incorrect:
556
557 ```python
558 title = self._search_regex(r'<span\b.*class="title".*>(.+?)<', webpage, 'title')
559 ```
560
561
562 ### Long lines policy
563
564 There 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.
565
566 For example, you should **never** split long string literals like URLs or some other often copied entities over multiple lines to fit this limit:
567
568 Conversely, don't unnecessarily 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.
569
570 ##### Examples
571
572 Correct:
573
574 ```python
575 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list=PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
576 ```
577
578 Incorrect:
579
580 ```python
581 'https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FqZTN594JQw&list='
582 'PLMYEtVRpaqY00V9W81Cwmzp6N6vZqfUKD4'
583 ```
584
585 Correct:
586
587 ```python
588 uploader = traverse_obj(info, ('uploader', 'name'), ('author', 'fullname'))
589 ```
590
591 Incorrect:
592
593 ```python
594 uploader = traverse_obj(
595 info,
596 ('uploader', 'name'),
597 ('author', 'fullname'))
598 ```
599
600 Correct:
601
602 ```python
603 formats = self._extract_m3u8_formats(
604 m3u8_url, video_id, 'mp4', 'm3u8_native', m3u8_id='hls',
605 note='Downloading HD m3u8 information', errnote='Unable to download HD m3u8 information')
606 ```
607
608 Incorrect:
609
610 ```python
611 formats = self._extract_m3u8_formats(m3u8_url,
612 video_id,
613 'mp4',
614 'm3u8_native',
615 m3u8_id='hls',
616 note='Downloading HD m3u8 information',
617 errnote='Unable to download HD m3u8 information')
618 ```
619
620
621 ### Quotes
622
623 Always 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.
624
625
626 ### Inline values
627
628 Extracting 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.
629
630 #### Examples
631
632 Correct:
633
634 ```python
635 return {
636 'title': self._html_search_regex(r'<h1>([^<]+)</h1>', webpage, 'title'),
637 # ...some lines of code...
638 }
639 ```
640
641 Incorrect:
642
643 ```python
644 TITLE_RE = r'<h1>([^<]+)</h1>'
645 # ...some lines of code...
646 title = self._html_search_regex(TITLE_RE, webpage, 'title')
647 # ...some lines of code...
648 return {
649 'title': title,
650 # ...some lines of code...
651 }
652 ```
653
654
655 ### Collapse fallbacks
656
657 Multiple fallback values can quickly become unwieldy. Collapse multiple fallback values into a single expression via a list of patterns.
658
659 #### Example
660
661 Good:
662
663 ```python
664 description = self._html_search_meta(
665 ['og:description', 'description', 'twitter:description'],
666 webpage, 'description', default=None)
667 ```
668
669 Unwieldy:
670
671 ```python
672 description = (
673 self._og_search_description(webpage, default=None)
674 or self._html_search_meta('description', webpage, default=None)
675 or self._html_search_meta('twitter:description', webpage, default=None))
676 ```
677
678 Methods supporting list of patterns are: `_search_regex`, `_html_search_regex`, `_og_search_property`, `_html_search_meta`.
679
680
681 ### Trailing parentheses
682
683 Always move trailing parentheses used for grouping/functions after the last argument. On the other hand, multi-line literal list/tuple/dict/set should closed be in a new line. Generators and list/dict comprehensions may use either style
684
685 #### Examples
686
687 Correct:
688
689 ```python
690 url = traverse_obj(info, (
691 'context', 'dispatcher', 'stores', 'VideoTitlePageStore', 'data', 'video', 0, 'VideoUrlSet', 'VideoUrl'), list)
692 ```
693 Correct:
694
695 ```python
696 url = traverse_obj(
697 info,
698 ('context', 'dispatcher', 'stores', 'VideoTitlePageStore', 'data', 'video', 0, 'VideoUrlSet', 'VideoUrl'),
699 list)
700 ```
701
702 Incorrect:
703
704 ```python
705 url = traverse_obj(
706 info,
707 ('context', 'dispatcher', 'stores', 'VideoTitlePageStore', 'data', 'video', 0, 'VideoUrlSet', 'VideoUrl'),
708 list
709 )
710 ```
711
712 Correct:
713
714 ```python
715 f = {
716 'url': url,
717 'format_id': format_id,
718 }
719 ```
720
721 Incorrect:
722
723 ```python
724 f = {'url': url,
725 'format_id': format_id}
726 ```
727
728 Correct:
729
730 ```python
731 formats = [process_formats(f) for f in format_data
732 if f.get('type') in ('hls', 'dash', 'direct') and f.get('downloadable')]
733 ```
734
735 Correct:
736
737 ```python
738 formats = [
739 process_formats(f) for f in format_data
740 if f.get('type') in ('hls', 'dash', 'direct') and f.get('downloadable')
741 ]
742 ```
743
744
745 ### Use convenience conversion and parsing functions
746
747 Wrap all extracted numeric data into safe functions from [`yt_dlp/utils/`](yt_dlp/utils/): `int_or_none`, `float_or_none`. Use them for string to number conversions as well.
748
749 Use `url_or_none` for safe URL processing.
750
751 Use `traverse_obj` and `try_call` (superseeds `dict_get` and `try_get`) for safe metadata extraction from parsed JSON.
752
753 Use `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.
754
755 Explore [`yt_dlp/utils/`](yt_dlp/utils/) for more useful convenience functions.
756
757 #### Examples
758
759 ```python
760 description = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'video', 'summary'), expected_type=str)
761 thumbnails = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'thumbnails', ..., 'url'), expected_type=url_or_none)
762 video = traverse_obj(response, ('result', 'video', 0), default={}, expected_type=dict)
763 duration = float_or_none(video.get('durationMs'), scale=1000)
764 view_count = int_or_none(video.get('views'))
765 ```
766
767
768 # My pull request is labeled pending-fixes
769
770 The `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.
771
772
773
774
775 # EMBEDDING YT-DLP
776 See [README.md#embedding-yt-dlp](README.md#embedding-yt-dlp) for instructions on how to embed yt-dlp in another Python program