Use metadata to uniquely identify files - java

Hello need to know how to identify the audio file in the storage of a device, the question is as follows:
I am developing a music player and am storing some playback data in the database that are attached to each audio file individually, from time to time the application checks for changes in the user's audio library (on sdcard or internal memory) and inserts the new songs (if any) in the database, the problem is I can not identify if the database already exists because I can not get a common identifier, I tried to use the music path in the storage but in some cases the music name has banned characters that prevent me from using in sqlite so the question is:
How to identify an audio file?
EDIT1:
I think my question was not very clear, what I wanted was a way to individually identify each audio file using for example some metadata of the file that was unique to it and could not be repeated such as the creation date of the file in milliseconds, or any other metadata that is unique to each file, like a fingerprint.
I'm testing a solution that I find not if it is is ideal, I take the path of the file and use the Base64 class to encode it:
String path = "/storage/emulated/0/Download/Disturbed-Ten Thousand Fists.mp3";
Base64.encodeToString(path.getBytes(), Base64.DEFAULT);'
result is: L3N0b3JhZ2UvZW11bGF0ZWQvMC9Eb3dubG9hZC9EaXN0dXJiZWQtVGVuIFRob3VzYW5kIEZpc3Rz
Lm1wMw
The size varies depending on the path but String gets only letters and numbers that are accepted in the database and the result is always the same for each path. What you tink about it?

An audio file can be identified by the extension. A list (not complete) of formats that is used can be found on Wikipedia Audio_file_format
Your best option would probably be to check the file extension and make a list of known extension types related to audio.
This does not, however, cover cases such as an MP4 file with audio and no video.

For the purpose of this, I will assume you already have a variable, either hard coded or in a loop/list, which is the File object you wish to check.
File audioFile;
//this is just for readability, do not write in your code as this should be replaced with the variable you have which is storing the audio file File.
String name = audioFile.getName();
//This is where you can do your logic. The name also returns the extension of the file so you can make sure your music player can handle the file extension, and also check the characters in the name
//Here is an example of detecting the ' character
if(name.contains("'")){
//do something
}
Please let me know if you have further questions!

You must clicked all file format in the file type frame then choose the insert file with audio format such mp3, real, wmp.

Related

Can I save a text file without giving users ability to modify it?

I'm working on a game and I am at that part that I want to save the game progress into a text file (or maybe a properties file would be good too), but I'd like to save that file to a place that is not reachable for the players. I was thinking about saving it to a source folder inside the program, but I am not able to save or load a text file from there, only images. Could anybody suggest something how/where to save the game stats that players can not just go into the settings file and modify their score or level or something like that?
With the properties file my only problem is the saving, where I need an output stream or a writer to save it, what I', not able to get
Assuming your player's pc has a regular hard drive with regular standards then:
If the game is offline(and maybe later synced with a server) then the answer is NO; if your app can access the file so does the user; even if you encrypt the data written to the save file people can just reverse engineer your app and get the keys and algorithms and modify the file; to put it simply you can only complicate it, their access to save files is inevitable.
If your game is only possible to be played online then you can do sanity check for every action of the players and save the progress in an inaccessible by players manner;
About the read only, been asked before:
create a read-only file
For the second one, keep in mind that as you know the path to the file and the name of it, the user don't. Saving the file using "scary" name, in un-trivial path will protect the file from any changes for a while

Change details of an mp3 using either java or C++

I am trying to cleanup my mp3 collection and I have a bunch of songs that have the artist at the beginning of the song or numbers so I wanted to know if there is a way take the number from the filename and put it into the details (track number) of the file. I already know how to read files from folders I am just not sure how to change the details of a file if possible.
Have you considered using Mp3Tag it's a very nice application that actually has tools for analyzing file names and putting the details in to the tags.

Reading and editing .wav (or flac) details in Java

I have tons of ripped .wav files (I'm ready to convert them into flacs if it's easier) which details I want to insert in a MySQL database. When I right click the .wav files in Windows Explorer (not the browser) and select Properties -> Details I can see some details about the song. For example the artist, genre and duration. How can I read and edit these details in Java?
To get durration information, see this link: Java - reading, manipulating and writing WAV files
Essentially, a WAV file is broken up into chunks, which either contain audio data, or describe the audio data in some way, or provide information about it. If the reader doesn't understand one of those chunks it is able to skip it, which allows placing a lot of different kinds of information in the file. One of those chunks contains information like the samplerate, number of channels and total number of sample frames, from which you can calculate the length.
For artist, genre and so on... well there's no standard chunk for that, so if that's really in the file, and not in the windows db somewhere, it's probably stored in ID3 tags embedded in the WAV. I don't know for sure what the chunkID is for ID3, but it's probably "id3 ", or "ID3 " (including the space). You coud probably figure this out by searching for strings of length 4 or more in the file -- usually data chunks are in the beginning and audio is at the end. (on unix/macos I would use the "strings" command, maybe with "head") ID3 tags are standard for MP3, and you can figure out how to parse them by googling. To get to them, you'll need to understand WAV files first, at least enough to know what chunks are, chunkIds, how to skip chunks you don't care about, and so on.
I don't know of a library that will read ID3 tags in WAV files in Java, so you'll either have to write one, or wrap one written in another language. I suspect libsndfile will work, but it doesn't have an MP3 reader, so maybe not. You could also try SOX. You can also check out http://javamusictag.sourceforge.net/ which I've never used, but it came up in a search.
good luck!
I ended up converting them into flac files and using JAudiotagger. Thanks for the responses, this time I ended up this way.
http://www.jthink.net/jaudiotagger/

Creating an uneditable data file in Java

I am currently writing a program which takes user input and creates rows of a comma delimited .csv file. I am in need of a way to save this data in a way in which users are not able to easily edit this data. It does not need to be super secure, just enough so that it couldn't accidentally be edited. I also need another file (or the same file?) created to then be easily accessible (in the file system) by the user so that they may then email this file to a system admin who can then open the .csv file. I could provide this second person with a conversion program if necessary.
The file I save data in and the file to be sent can be two different files if there are any advantages to this. I was currently considering just using a file with a weird file extension, but saving it as a text file so that the user will only be able to open it if they know to try that. The other option being some sort of encryption, but I'm not sure if this is necessary and even if it was where I would start.
Thanks for the help :)
Edit: This file is meant to store the actual data being entered. Currently the data is being gathered on paper forms which are then sent to the admin to manually enter all of the data. This little app is meant to have someone else enter the data from the paper form and then tell them if they've entered it all correctly. After they've entered it all they then need to send the data to the admin. It would be preferable if the sending was handled automatically, but this app needs to be very simple and low budget and I don't want an internet connection to be a requirement.
You could store your data in a serializable object and save that. It would resist casual editing and be very simple to read and write from your app. This page should get you started: http://java.sun.com/developer/technicalArticles/Programming/serialization/
From your question, I am guessing that the uneditable file's purpose is to store some kind of system config and you don't want it to get messed up easily. From your own suggestions, it seems that even knowing that the file has been edited would help you, since you can then avoid using it. If that is the case, then you can use simple checks, such as save the total number of characters in the line as the first or last comma delimited value. Then, before you use the file, you just run a small validation code on it to verify that the file is indeed unaltered.
Another approach may just be to use a ZIP (file) of a "plain text format" (CSV, XML, other serialization method, etc) and, optionally, utilize a well-known (to you) password.
This approach could be used with other stream/package types: the idea behind using a ZIP (as opposed to an object serializer directly) is so that one can open/inspect/modify said data/file(s) easily without special program support. This may or may not be a benefit and using a password may or may not even be required, see below.
Some advantages of using a ZIP (or CAB):
The ability for multiple resources (aids in extensibility)
The ability to save the actual data in a "text format" (XML, perhaps)
Maintain competitive file-sizes for "common data"
Re-use existing tooling support (also get checksum validation for free!)
Additionally, using a non-ZIP file extension will prevent most users from casually associating the file (a similar approach to what is presented in the original post, but subtly different because the ZIP format itself is not "plain text") with the ZIP format and being able to open it. A number of modern Microsoft formats utilize the fact that the file-extension plays an important role and use CAB (and sometimes ZIP) formats as the container format for the document. That is, an ".XSN" or ".WSP" or ".gadget" file can be opened with a tool like 7-zip, but are generally only done so by developers who are "in the know". Also, just consider ".WAR" and ".JAR" files as other examples of this approach, since this is Java we're in.
Traditional ZIP passwords are not secure, and more-so is using a static password embedded in the program. However, if this is just a deterrent (e.g. not for "security") then those issues are not important. Coupled with an "un-associated" file-type/extension, I believe this offers the protection asked for in the question while remaining flexible. It may be possible to entirely drop the password usage and still prevent "accidental modifications" just by using a ZIP (or other) container format, depending upon requirement/desires.
Happy coding.
Can you set file permissions to make it read-only?
Other than doing a binary output file, the file system that Windows runs (I know for sure it works from XP through x64 Windows 7) has a little trick that you can use to hide data from anyone simply perusing through your files:
Append your output and input files with a colon and then an arbitrary value, eg if your filename is "data.csv", make it instead "data.csv:42". Any existing or non-existing file can be appended to to access a whole hidden area (and every file for every value after the colon is distinct, so "data.csv:42" != "data.csv:carrots" != "second.csv:carrots").
If this file doesn't exist, it will be created and initialized to have 0 bytes of data with it. If you open up the file in Notepad you will indeed see that it holds exactly the data it held before writing to the :42 file, no more, no less, but in reality subsequent data read from this "data.csv:42" file will persist. This makes it a perfect place to hide data from any annoying user!
Caveats: If you delete "data.csv", all associated hidden data will be deleted too. Also, there are indeed programs that will find these files, but if your user goes through all that trouble to manually edit some csv file, I say let them.
I also have no idea if this will work on other platforms, I've never thought to try it.

Guidance on Android file storage

I need to write an Android app that would download sounds from the internet for further use.
Where should i store these sounds? Is Sqlite an option? And what's the best way to load and play these files?
Thanks in advance.
I would recommend putting the files on the SD Card, if one exists. One thing to note, though, is that you should never hard code a path to the SD card. You would likely want to do something along the lines of:
try {
//Create handle to SD card drectory
exportDirectory = new File(Environment.getExternalStorageDirectory() + "/MyDir");
//Verify export path exists. Create otherwise.
if (exportDirectory.exists() == false) {
if (exportDirectory.mkdirs() == false) {
//Directory structure could not be created.
//Message the user here
return false;
}
}
//Create handle to SD card file.
exportFile = new File(exportDirectory.getAbsolutePath() + "/whatever.mp3");
//Do whatever here
} catch(Exception e) {
//Exception. Message user and bail
return false;
}
From there it is a simple matter of transferring whatever data you want into the file. An SQLite database would likely be overkill for this app, unless you plan on storing a LOT of extra information. There is also no guarantee, unless you store the files directly into the database as BLOBs, that the user won't mess with the file system between application runs. Though, in the case of MP3s and the like, track / artist type information can be stored directly into the file via ID3 tags instead of using a database.
As for playing the files back, consult the Android documentation on their audio APIs. There is a ton of great information out there, definitely more than I can repeat here.
I'd say the best place to store them is as individual files on the sdcard under your own folder i.e. File("/sdcard/com.example.myapp/sound12345.mp3");
EDIT: please see phobos51594's answer which is much more complete than mine.
It's best to save them directly on the file system. Why would you want to store it in a database? are there additional information you need to store together with it? (Like titles, descriptions etc)? If not, I'd write it directly into the filesystem.
Basically you could save it into the data folder of your app (where the shared preferences, and sqlite db are stored too). However, I personally think this should be discouraged, as it reduces the available memonry on the /data partition (which is already tooo small on Android phones. Most phones have less than 50 MB free on data (this means: less than 50 MB for apps, which can't be partly moved to SD card).
You should always safe such fines on SD card if possible, so you don't lower free space on data partition too much. Even with Froyo's A2SD feature, not all data of an installed app is moved on the SD card. The *.dex files (which often ranges between 10-50% of the total size of an app) still remains on /data partition. So does the settings and sqlite databases this apps uses. So even with A2SD the space will become less and less the more apps the user installs

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