Inside mp3 files there are often some usefull informations stored. Those data are called “id3 tags” and deal with Author name, Title and Album name.
There are also some other informations sometimes: such as the length of the track, or the track number of the album, and more…
Well, all of these infos are packed inside the mp3 into a block of bytes called “header“. When I say packed I mean that they are written in a block of bytes in which each byte must be read as binary data following pre-defined rules. The rules, for the mp3 id3 tags, are defined here in the ID3v2 site (at the chapter 3.1).
Reading binary data means that you have to understand each bit, because each bit as a meaning and the rules can say something like “the first 3 bytes identify the tag: the mp3 contains a ID3 tag if the first 3 bytes are ‘ID3’ string“. This rule is easy because you are used to watch bytes as chars as in text files, so you read the first 3 bytes and compare them to the ‘ID3’ string.
Another rule can say: “after the first 3 bytes you have a byte for the version and a byte for the revision number”. This is more complex because you cannnot use bytes as chars, since the number 3 is this octet 00000011 (an octet is a group of 8 bits), whereas the char “3” is this octet 00110011, that is the number 51.
This means that you have to use functions like bin2hex and hexdec to convert bytes into chars to understand them.
I’ve found the following function on the Giuseppe Manzavino site and I’ve modified it to fix two really small bugs and I see it works fine with ID3 tags written in some files I’ve edited with iTunes.
<?
// From here: http://www.autistici.org/ermes/index.php?pag=1&post=15
// and fixed here: http://www.barattalo.it
// ------------------------------
// example:
// print_r( tagReader ("myfile.mp3") );
// ------------------------------
function tagReader($file){
$id3v23 = array("TIT2","TALB","TPE1","TRCK","TDRC","TLEN","USLT");
$id3v22 = array("TT2","TAL","TP1","TRK","TYE","TLE","ULT");
$fsize = filesize($file);
$fd = fopen($file,"r");
$tag = fread($fd,$fsize);
$tmp = "";
fclose($fd);
if (substr($tag,0,3) == "ID3") {
$result['FileName'] = $file;
$result['TAG'] = substr($tag,0,3);
$result['Version'] = hexdec(bin2hex(substr($tag,3,1))).".".hexdec(bin2hex(substr($tag,4,1)));
}
if($result['Version'] == "4.0" || $result['Version'] == "3.0"){
for ($i=0;$i<count($id3v23);$i++){
if (strpos($tag,$id3v23[$i].chr(0))!= FALSE){
$pos = strpos($tag, $id3v23[$i].chr(0));
$len = hexdec(bin2hex(substr($tag,($pos+5),3)));
$data = substr($tag, $pos, 9+$len);
for ($a=0;$a<strlen($data);$a++){
$char = substr($data,$a,1);
if($char >= " " && $char <= "~") $tmp.=$char;
}
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "TIT2") $result['Title'] = substr($tmp,4);
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "TALB") $result['Album'] = substr($tmp,4);
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "TPE1") $result['Author'] = substr($tmp,4);
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "TRCK") $result['Track'] = substr($tmp,4);
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "TDRC") $result['Year'] = substr($tmp,4);
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "TLEN") $result['Lenght'] = substr($tmp,4);
if(substr($tmp,0,4) == "USLT") $result['Lyric'] = substr($tmp,7);
$tmp = "";
}
}
}
if($result['Version'] == "2.0"){
for ($i=0;$i<count($id3v22);$i++){
if (strpos($tag,$id3v22[$i].chr(0))!= FALSE){
$pos = strpos($tag, $id3v22[$i].chr(0));
$len = hexdec(bin2hex(substr($tag,($pos+3),3)));
$data = substr($tag, $pos, 6+$len);
for ($a=0;$a<strlen($data);$a++){
$char = substr($data,$a,1);
if($char >= " " && $char <= "~") $tmp.=$char;
}
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "TT2") $result['Title'] = substr($tmp,3);
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "TAL") $result['Album'] = substr($tmp,3);
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "TP1") $result['Author'] = substr($tmp,3);
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "TRK") $result['Track'] = substr($tmp,3);
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "TYE") $result['Year'] = substr($tmp,3);
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "TLE") $result['Lenght'] = substr($tmp,3);
if(substr($tmp,0,3) == "ULT") $result['Lyric'] = substr($tmp,6);
$tmp = "";
}
}
}
return $result;
}
?>
Anyone as seen something similar for reading the EXIF informations on the JPEG files?
Hmm… I’m getting both errors and truncated data. It’s not reading the track info correctly. Any ideas?
@Alan: change line 26 to this:
$data = substr($tag, $pos, 10+$len);
I have no idea why, but it works for me.
if i want to read comment tag in ID3 of a MP3, would u like to give me some help because i’m stuck in it.
please help me every help would be a bless for me :)
regards,
I would like to include this function in the “Mootools File Manager” but you have not specified any license on the code.
The MFM uses the MIT license, will it be acceptable to you to include this function under the MIT license.
https://github.com/sleemanj/mootools-filemanager
What if I just want to print one tag instead of all ID3 tags? Let’s say I just want to print the Artist name into html? Is that possible
Thanks for this code sample. I am planning to use a modified version of it to index sermons uploaded to our church server. I credited your section of code.
I found that your code doesn’t work properly with title,album,author,etc. longer than 30 characters. I found that there is an extra character appearing before strings longer than 30 characters.
I have defined a new variable to state the first character in the substring and defined it between your lines 26 & 27:
if($len>33){$fchar = 5;}Else{$fchar = 4;}
On lines 31 – 36 I have changed your code
substr($tmp,4);
to
substr($tmp,$fchar);
Thanks again!
I used this.Thank you very much. But I also want to get image also. I found that the appropriate tag is “APIC”. But data doesn’t come out right. I mean it should be a string of 64base , right ? Or else ? Can you please help out