ARMANGIL'S PODCATCHER ===================== Armangil's podcatcher is a podcast client for the command line. It can download any type of content enclosed in RSS or Atom files, such as MP3 or other audio content, video and images. A search function for subscribing to feeds is also included. It provides several download strategies, supports BitTorrent, offers cache management, and generates playlists for media player applications. As argument, it accepts feeds (RSS or Atom) or subscription lists (OPML or iTunes PCAST), in the form of filenames or URLs (HTTP or FTP). Alternatively, it accepts one feed or subscription list from the standard input. BitTorrent is supported both internally (through the RubyTorrent library) and externally (.torrent files are downloaded, but the user handles them using a BitTorrent application). The latter is currently the most reliable method, as RubyTorrent is still in alpha phase. Concurrency is not handled: simultaneous executions of this program should target different directories. As of version 4, the default target directory is ~/.podcatcher instead of the current directory. Visit https://github.com/doga/podcatcher for more information. Installation ------------ $ # Optional security step (do this once) $ gem cert --add <(curl -Ls https://raw.githubusercontent.com/doga/podcatcher/master/1.%20Resolve%20ERB%20markup/certs/doga.pem) $ $ # Install $ # (Optional security paramater: --trust-policy HighSecurity) $ gem install podcatcher --trust-policy HighSecurity $ $ # Check the used version $ podcatcher --version 4.0.0 $ $ # Optionally enable podcatcher MAN pages on Unix-like systems $ gem install gem-man # do this once $ gem man podcatcher # shows podcatcher MAN page Usage ----- podcatcher [options] [arguments] Options: -d, --dir DIR Directory for storing application state. Default value is ~/.podcatcher . -D, --cachedir DIR Directory for storing downloaded content. Default value is the 'cache' subdirectory of the state directory (specified by the --dir option). This option is ignored if this directory is inside the state directory, or if the state directory is inside this directory. -s, --size SIZE Size, in megabytes, of the cache directory (specified by the --cachedir option). 0 means unbounded. Default value is 512. This option also sets the upper limit for the amount of content that can be downloaded in one session. Content downloaded during previous sessions may be deleted by podcatcher in order to make place for new content. -e, --[no-]empty Empty the cache directory before downloading content. -p, --[no-]perfeed Create one subdirectory per feed in the cache directory. -S, --strategy S Strategy to use when downloading content: * back_catalog: download any content that has not been downloaded before; prefer recent content to older content (may download more than one content file per feed), * one: download one content file (not already downloaded) for each feed, with a preference for recent content, * all: download all content, with a preference for recent content; even already downloaded content is downloaded once again (may download more than one content file per feed), * chron: download in chronological order any content that has not been downloaded before; this is useful for audiobook podcasts etc (may download more than one content file per feed), * chron_one: download the oldest content of each feed that has not already been downloaded, * chron_all: download all content in chronological order, even if the content has already been downloaded (may download more than one content file per feed), * new: download the most recent content of each feed, if it has not already been downloaded (DEPRECATED: use 'one' instead of 'new'), * cache: generate a playlist for content already in cache. Default value is one. -C, --content REGEXP A regular expression that matches the MIME types of content to be downloaded. Examples: '^video/', '^audio/mpeg$'. Default value is '', which matches any type of content. -l, --language LANG A list of language tags separated by commas. Examples: 'en-us,de', 'fr'. A feed whose language does not match this list is ignored. By default, all feeds are accepted. See http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/languages.html and http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/rss/rss.html#optionalChannelElements for allowed tags. -H, --horizon DATE Do not download content older than the given date. The date has the format yyyy.mm.dd (example: 2007.03.22) or yyyy.mm (equivalent to yyyy.mm.01) or yyyy (equivalent to yyyy.01.01). By default, no horizon is specified. -r, --retries N Try downloading files (content, feeds or subscription lists) at most N times before giving up. Default value is 1. -t, --type TYPE Type of the playlist written to standard output. Accepted values are m3u, smil, pls, asx, tox, xspf. Default value is m3u. -m, --memsize N Remember last N downloaded content, and do not download them again. 0 means unbounded. Default value is 1000. -o, --order ORDER The order in which feeds are traversed when downloading content: * random: randomizes the feed order, so that every feed has an equal chance when content is downloaded, even if the cache size is small and the number of feeds is big, * alphabetical: orders feeds alphabetically by using their titles, * sequential: preserves the argument order (and the feed order in subscription lists), * reverse: reverses the feed order. Default value is random. -F, --function FUNCTION Used function: * download: downloads content from specified feeds, * search: generates an OPML subscription list of feeds matching the specified query; the only options relevant for search are -v, -r and -f. Default value is download. -f, --feeds N Do not download more than N feeds (when using the download function), or return the first N relevant feeds (when using the search function). 0 means unbounded. Default value is 1000. -T, --torrentdir DIR Copy torrent files to directory DIR. The handling of torrents through an external BitTorrent client is left to the user. If this option is not used, torrents are handled internally (if RubyTorrent is installed), or else ignored. -U, --uploadrate N Maximum upload rate (kilobytes per second) for the internal BitTorrent client. Unbounded by default. -i, --itemsize N If downloaded content is less than N MB in size (where N is an integer), fetch other content of that same feed until this size is reached. Default value is 0. The intent here is to ensure that podcatcher downloads about as much content from podcasts that frequently post small content (in terms of minutes) as it does from podcasts that post bigger content less frequently. This option was more relevant in the early days of podcasting when content size varied greatly from one podcast to another. You would rarely need to use this option today. -c, --[no-]cache Generate a playlist for content already in cache. DEPRECATED, use '--strategy cache'. -a, --[no-]asif Do not download content, only download feeds and subscription lists. Useful for testing. -v, --[no-]verbose Run verbosely. -V, --version Display current version and exit. -h, --help Display this message and exit. --[no-]restrictednames In the cache directory, make the names of created subdirectories and files acceptable for restrictive file systems such as VFAT and FAT, which are used on Windows and MP3 player devices. Enabled by default. -A, --arguments FILENAME_OR_URL Read arguments from specified file. Rules: * accepts one argument per line, * ignores empty lines and lines starting with #, * this option may be used several times in one command. -O, --options FILENAME_OR_URL Read options from specified file. The options file uses the YAML format. Usage examples: podcatcher http://feeds.feedburner.com/Ruby5 podcatcher -O options.yaml -A feeds.txt podcatcher --dir ~/podcasts http://www.npr.org/podcasts.opml podcatcher --dir ~/podcasts --strategy cache > cache.m3u cat feeds.opml | podcatcher --dir ~/podcasts > latest.m3u podcatcher -vd ~/podcasts -s 500 -m 10_000 -t tox feeds.opml > latest.tox podcatcher -vF search news http://www.bbc.co.uk/podcasts.opml > bbc_news.opml podcatcher -F search -f 12 news http://www.npr.org/podcasts.opml > npr_news.opml Support ------- Please use https://github.com/doga/podcatcher for bug reports and feature requests. License ------- Armangil's podcatcher is released under the MIT Licence.