IMDb ID

An easy-to-use commandline tool to look up the IMDb ID of a movie or show, given its name

It's built for both easy interactive use and scripting capabilities

Why does this exist?

Because certain sites support searching using these IMDb IDs and it's really useful as an unambiguous identifier

How do I install it?

You need to have Rust installed on your system, then run the following:

cargo install imdb-id

How do I update it?

If a new version has come out since you installed, you can run

cargo install --force imdb-id

To update the program. For a nicer solution to updating any Rust programs you have installed through Cargo, check out cargo-update

Usage

USAGE:
    imdb-id [OPTIONS] [search_term]...

ARGS:
    <search_term>...
            The title of the movie/show you're looking for

OPTIONS:
        --api-key <api_key>
            Your OMDb API key (overrides saved value if present)

    -f, --format <format>
            Change output format to desired standard
            Formats are only available if you opted-IN at installation
            All the formats imdb-id can support are: json, yaml

    -h, --help
            Print help information

    -n, --non-interactive
            Disables interactive features (always picks the first result)

    -u, --print-url
            Print the full IMDb URL instead of just the ID

    -r, --results <number_of_results>
            The maximum number of results to show from IMDb

    -t, --type <filter_type>
            Filters results to a specific media type (movie or series). Can be given multiple times

    -V, --version
            Print version information

    -y, --year <filter_year>
            Filters results to a specific year, or range of years
            Media which has no year specified will always be included
            Ranges are fully inclusive
            Examples: 2021, 1990-2000, 2000- (2000 onwards), -2000 (before 2000)

ENVIRONMENT VARIABLES:
    IMDB_ID_MAX_REQUESTS_PER_SEARCH
            Adjusts the limit on the number of requests per search. Default is 10

Format support

By default, imdb-id only comes with -f/--format support for JSON. To install with all supported formats, use the following command:

cargo install imdb-id --all-features

Or choose the additional formats you want from the below:

YAML

And run:

cargo install imdb-id --features "<format_one> <format_two>"

If you're reading this now having already installed imdb-id with the different feature selection to what you wanted, you need to add the --force flag to the install command to let Cargo override your existing installed binary cleanly

If there's a format you'd like to see supported, open up an issue or a pull request and I can see if I can make it happen!

Roadmap

Version 1:

Proof of concept - done as of v0.1.0!
CLI option parsing and non-interactive 'feeling lucky' mode with appropriate output - done as of v0.2.0!
Interactive mode - done as v1.0.0!
Result pagination - done as of v1.0.1!
Filtering by genre - done as of v1.0.2! (note: the v1.0.2 release has glaring bugs, please don't use it)
Filtering by year - done as of v1.0.3!
Different output format support: JSON, YAML, etc. - done as of v1.0.4!
~~Use async/tokio properly~~ - dismissed as unnecessary when the program only makes a single web request. See note in lib.rs for more

Version 2:

OMDb API migration - done as of v2.0.0!
Apply filtering at a request level (will result in more results being shown) - done as of v2.0.5!
OMDb automated sign-up - done as of v2.1.0!
Show extra information about media when selecting them - done as of v3.0.0!

Version 3:

Bring back pagination
???
Profit!