Author Topic: Does MusicBee save multiple genre values in seperate tags?  (Read 1684 times)

SandaruLJ

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I guess it uses a null character to seperate the multiple values in a single TCON tag. But it's kind of confusing because in Tag Inspector they are shown as several seperate TCON tags. I just wanted to know for sure. Does MusicBee save multiple values in separate tags, or in a single tag separated by null characters?

frankz

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Musicbee does correctly save multiple genres as separate instances of the tag (Tag Code TCON in ID3v2, GENRE in VORBIS).
Last Edit: November 22, 2020, 07:11:23 AM by frankz


alec.tron

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Musicbee does correctly save multiple genres as separate instances of the tag (Tag Code TCON in ID3v2, GENRE in VORBIS).
From what I have seen, this is true for Vorbis, which allows multi-field instances, whereas this is not the case for ID3... which as SandaruLJ stated is infact a NUL separated character string.
i.e. If I query TCON on an ID3 field w multi value genres via Mutagen (https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) it does show <0x00> separators in a single TCOn field... whereas in MusicBee it does indeed look / display as if it were multi fields [which, afaik is not possible with ID3 either]

Would be good to get an official statement on this, as I am not a data/hex specialist or programmer...

Cheers.
c.
Last Edit: November 22, 2020, 11:17:24 AM by alec.tron

frankz

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Musicbee does correctly save multiple genres as separate instances of the tag (Tag Code TCON in ID3v2, GENRE in VORBIS).
From what I have seen, this is true for Vorbis, which allows multi-field instances, whereas this is not the case for ID3... which as SandaruLJ stated is infact a NUL separated character string.
i.e. If I query TCON on an ID3 field w multi value genres via Mutagen (https://mutagen.readthedocs.io/en/latest/) it does show <0x00> separators in a single TCOn field... whereas in MusicBee it does indeed look / display as if it were multi fields [which, afaik is not possible with ID3 either]

Would be good to get an official statement on this, as I am not a data/hex specialist or programmer...

Cheers.
c.
Hmmm...I'll admit that my answer was based on a long-standing fairly strong assumption on my part based on how they are displayed in the Tag Inspector and also how they're treated in other programs.  Did not know that it's not possible with ID3, which kind of throws a wrench in that.

For all intents and purposes, though, they're seemingly treated as separate tags everywhere the tags are read.  Same with Artist.  I'm wondering if it isn't a distinction without much of a practical difference.

psychoadept

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Wikipedia on the subject:

Version 2.4 of the specification prescribes that all text fields (the fields that start with a T, except for TXXX) can contain multiple values separated by a null character.
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frankz

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Consider my education on the subject officially enhanced.

I'm wondering, though, what the functional difference between the two is.  In other words, why would this be an issue for anyone?