Re: [Bug-gnupod] Support for 4th gen iPod Shuffle

[H. Langos]

On Thu, May 28, 2009 at 08:54:58PM +0200, address@hidden wrote:
> Hi Henrik,
> 
> thank you for spending time on that issue.
> I did some engeneering on the iTunesDB file (
> http://evil.madrax.de/itunesdb.html) and wondered why the file does not 

Thats a nice link. Do you know how that page was created or could you try to
find out? 

I was thinking about writing an analyzer for the itunesDB format, too. 
But if somebody else already worked on this I gladly reuse that work.

Writing this in perl would be a pain since 90% of the time I would have
to spend on fighting perl about variable types. Dynamically typed languages
are not suitable for every application... But you know the saying ... 
if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail.

> have the structure as mentioned on http://www.ipodlinux.org/wiki/ITunesDB 
> (site seems to be down since yesterday). But i dont have any clue about 
> the different entries.
> 
> So, if the shuffle reads the SD file why does iTunes populate and store a 
> DB file on the shuffle, too?

I've read that iTunes will read back the data from the iTunesDB when you
connect your iPod to iTunes again. The old (pre talking shuffle) iTunesSD 
format is very limited and contains only a small part of the information
known to iTunes. So, the iTunesDB is a way for iTunes to store that 
information on the iPod until you reconnect it.
 
cheers
-henrik