--history usage

[RS]

From: Ralph Corderoy
Sent: Wednesday, November 8, 2017 6:24 PM

>> What is the significance of the index numbers returned by a search
>> with --history?

>They are line numbers, one based, in ~/.get_iplayer/download_history.

>> Is there any easy way of getting the complete records?

>It's a simple text file of one record per line, with `|'-separated
>fields.

Hi Ralph

Thanks for that.  I had noticed that the PID always occurred at the 
beginning of a line, so I ought to have thought of that.  Once I turned off 
word wrap the format became a lot clearer.  I had not realised how easy it 
was to import it to a spreadsheet.  In PlanMaker I did not even have to tell 
it the separator; it worked it out for itself.  Calc was slightly more work, 
but nothing onerous.  I haven't yet tried in Excel.

One thing that did require a bit of searching was the download date and time 
in column 5.  I eventually found it was a Unix Epoch Timestamp, the number 
of seconds since 1 January 1970.  It can be converted to a date by 
formatting a cell containing =(((E1/60)/60)/24)+DATE(1970,1,1) as a date.

As a spreadsheet the history is a useful reminder of programmes downloaded 
and the directory they were downloaded to.

The cache can also be imported to a spreadsheet, although there is a need 
for a liberal sprinkling of --exclude options to remove programmes which are 
never going to be of interest, especially for radio programmes.  It also has 
to be remembered that the cache will probably be refreshed when get_iplayer 
is started so the index numbers will change.  If the spreadsheet is going to 
be used to identify programmes for download it is safer to use the PID.

Best wishes
Richard