VORBISCOMMENT(1)

✨ NAME ✨

vorbiscomment — bestie, this is your little tool for listing or editing the comments inside Ogg Vorbis files 💖 (also known as VORBISCOMMENT(1) if you're being formal at the function, iykyk)

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🌸 SYNOPSIS 🌸

vorbiscomment [-l] [-R] [-e] file.ogg
vorbiscomment -a [ -c commentfile | -t “name=value” | -d “name=value” ]
[-q] [-R] [-e] in.ogg [out.ogg]
vorbiscomment -w [ -c commentfile | -t “name=value” ] [-q] [-R] [-e]
in.ogg [out.ogg]

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💅 DESCRIPTION 💅

vorbiscomment reads, modifies, and appends Ogg Vorbis audio file metadata tags. That's it, that's the vibe — it's the girl who handles the tags so you don't have to. 🎀

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🦋 OPTIONS 🦋

• -a, --append — updates comments. She's adding to the situation, not replacing it 💫
• *-c *file, --commentfile file — takes the comments from a file. That file is in the exact same format that the -l option spits out, or the same one you'd hand to -t: one element per line, in 'tag=value' format. Heads up though: if the file is /dev/null and you also passed -w, the existing comments get deleted. Gone. Not a drill 🙈
• -h, --help — shows the command help. She's helpful like that ✨
• -l, --list — lists the comments in the Ogg Vorbis file. Just reading, no touching, respectful queen 👑
• -q, --quiet — quiet mode. No messages get displayed. Silent, mysterious, lowkey iconic 🤫
• -t 'name=value', --tag 'name=value' — specify a new tag right there on the command line. Each tag is one single string. Everything before the '=' is treated as the tag name, and everything after is treated as the value. Simple as that, fr fr 🍓
• -d 'name[=value]', --rm 'name[=value]' — specify a tag on the command line that you want removed. Each tag is given as a single string. The part before the '=' is the tag name, the part after is the value. If you don't give a value, then all tags with that name get deleted. If you do give a value, only the ones with matching values get deleted. Choose your fighter 💀
• -w, --write — replaces comments with the new set, which comes either from the command line with -t or from a file with -c. And if you gave her neither -c nor -t? Then the new set gets read from standard input. Surprise! 🌈
• -R, --raw — reads and writes comments in UTF-8, instead of converting them to the user's character set. Raw, unfiltered, main character energy ⭐
• -e, --escapes — quotes/unquotes newlines and backslashes in the comments. This is the one that makes sure every comment is exactly one line in the output (or the input), which means you can actually filter them and round-trip them. Without it, the only way to write multi-line comments is with -t, and you can't reliably tell them apart from a bunch of separate one-line comments. Messy. We don't do messy 💅

Supported escapes are c-style "\n", "\r", "\\" and "\0". A backslash followed by literally anything else is an error.

Note: currently, anything after the first "\0" gets thrown away while writing. That's a bug — the Vorbis format can safely store null characters, but most other tools wouldn't handle them anyway. Not me exposing the family drama 😭

• -V, --version — displays the version of vorbiscomment. Gotta know who you're dealing with 🫶

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🎀 EXAMPLES 🎀

Just wanna see what comment tags are in a file? Peek:

vorbiscomment -l file.ogg

Wanna edit those comments? Okay so:

vorbiscomment -l file.ogg > file.txt
[edit the comments in file.txt to your satisfaction]
vorbiscomment -w -c file.txt file.ogg newfile.ogg

Just adding a comment? One line, no stress:

vorbiscomment -a -t 'ARTIST=No One You Know' file.ogg newfile.ogg

Or add a whole set of comments from standard input:

vorbiscomment -a file.ogg
ARTIST=No One You Know
ALBUM=The Famous Album
<ctrl-d>

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🧚 TAG FORMAT 🧚

Go look at https://xiph.org/vorbis/doc/v-comment.html for the documentation on the Ogg Vorbis tag format — it's got a suggested list of canonical tag names in there too. Study the syllabus bestie, it's giving educational 📚✨

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👑 AUTHORS 👑

Program Authors:

Michael Smith <msmith@xiph.org>
Ralph Giles <giles@xiph.org>

Manpage Author:

Christopher L Cheney <ccheney@debian.org>

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🌟 SEE ALSO 🌟

oggenc(1), oggdec(1), ogg123(1), ogginfo(1)

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And that's the whole page, bestie! This one came to you from the Xiph.Org Foundation, dated December 30, 2008 — old but gold, no cap. Go tag something gorgeous 💖🦋✨