Make a vlc playlist for a directory

playlist.py

from xml.dom.minidom import Document
import os
import sys

validExt = ('.avi') #only add files with these extensions to the playlist

if(len(sys.argv) > 1):
    rootdir = sys.argv[1]+'/'
    print(sys.argv[1])
else:
    rootdir = os.getcwd()+'/'

def createTrack(file, path):
    track = doc.createElement("track")
    tracklist.appendChild(track)
    location = doc.createElement("location")
    locationText = doc.createTextNode('file:///'+path+file)
    location.appendChild(locationText)
    track.appendChild(location)

doc = Document()
playlist = doc.createElement("playlist")
playlist.setAttribute("version","1")
playlist.setAttribute("xmlns","http://xspf.org/ns/0/")
playlist.setAttribute("xmlns:vlc","http://www.videolan.org/vlc/playlist/ns/0/")
doc.appendChild(playlist)
title = doc.createElement("title")
titlet = doc.createTextNode("Playlist")
title.appendChild(titlet)
playlist.appendChild(title)
tracklist = doc.createElement("trackList")
playlist.appendChild(tracklist);

for subdir, dirs, files in os.walk(rootdir):
    for file in files:
        ext = os.path.splitext(file)
        if(ext[1] in validExt):
            createTrack(file, subdir)

f = open(rootdir+"playlist.xspf",'w')
f.write(doc.toxml())
f.close()

Only tested on windows.

Will run in the current directory or in the directory passed as the first command line parameter.

Edit validExt to make it handle files other than avi's.

Playlist is output as a file called playlist.xspf into the directory that contains the files.

I know that this is an old project, but I have recently found it very useful , with one minor change ..

if you insert

files.sort()

right after line 34 your playlist is created in the same alphabetical order as the directory listing, which makes playing the files in the order intended much easier ..

another better way in the case there are numbers as well as letters is importing natsort and using

sortfiles = natsort.natsorted(files)
    for file in sortfiles:

Thanks for this ..