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 github.com/doga/podcatcher for more information.

Installation


$ # Optional security step (do this once) $ gem cert –add <(curl -Ls raw.githubusercontent.com/doga/podcatcher/master/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 github.com/doga/podcatcher for bug reports and feature requests.

License


Armangil’s podcatcher is released under the MIT Licence.