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In my .bashrc I have a function which I use to play random videos (not written below, just fyi), and another one for all media files, e.g.:

createmediafiles() { find ~+ -type f -iregex '.*\.\(mp3\|wav\|ogg\|flac\|mp4\|mov\|avi\)' > ~/mediafiles.txt find ~+ -type d -name VIDEO_TS >> ~+/mediafiles.txt } playmediafiles() { while true; do while read -r line; do shuf -n 1 | tee -a ~/played-log.txt | xargs -d "\n" mpv done < ~/mediafiles.txt done }

I want to add the VIDEO_TS line to createmediafiles, but in the playmediafiles function I want to add an IF statement, such that if the line shuffled to in mediafiles.txt is a VIDEO_TS then rather than using mpv to play a file, it will do:

tee -a ~/played-log.txt | xargs -d "\n" vlc --fullscreen

Piping in mediafiles.txt read the same way as it does with mpv.

How do I throw that in an IF statement with the condition being that the line ends in VIDEO_TS?

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  • Cramming all your code onto 1 line makes it harder for us to understand and so harder for us to help you so please don't cram all your code onto 1 line if you're going to ask anyone else to read it. I fixed it for you in this question. Commented Mar 26, 2024 at 11:05
  • I think the code in playmediafiles is trying to generate a randomised/shuffled list of items to play. Which it sort of does but desperately inefficiently Commented Mar 26, 2024 at 11:17
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    @ChrisDavies It's a way of getting the current working directory via a tilde expansion. When used unquoted (to get tilde expansion), it is $PWD, and ~- is $OLDPWD. I believe it's not standard (it can also be used with a digit to access the other elements of the directory stack in both bash and zsh). Commented Mar 26, 2024 at 11:36
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    @Kusalananda I actually think it's a typo (which just happens to mean something apparently!) and should just be ~/ since that's what the OP uses everywhere else, including to access that file later. Commented Mar 26, 2024 at 11:45
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    @EdMorton I didn't read it too carefully at first, but you may well be right. Of course, it would not matter if the createmediafiles function was always run from the user's home directory, but it would probably be creating mayhem (or at least unwanted files) if it wasn't. Commented Mar 26, 2024 at 11:48

1 Answer 1

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I think you might be trying to do something like this:

playmediafiles() { local line cmd while true; do line=$(shuf -n 1 ~/mediafiles.txt) case $line in *VIDEO_TS* ) cmd=( 'echo' 'vlc' '--fullscreen' ) ;; * ) cmd=( 'echo' 'mpv' ) ;; esac cmd+=( "$line" ) printf '%s\n' "$line" >> ~/played-log.txt "${cmd[@]}" done }

or:

playmediafiles() { local line cmd while true; do while IFS= read -r line; do case $line in *VIDEO_TS* ) cmd=( 'echo' 'vlc' '--fullscreen' ) ;; * ) cmd=( 'echo' 'mpv' ) ;; esac cmd+=( "$line" ) printf '%s\n' "$line" >> ~/played-log.txt "${cmd[@]}" done < <(shuf ~/mediafiles.txt) done }

The first script loops forever calling shuf to select 1 line at a time at random from mediafiles.txt and store that line in the variable line.

The second script loops forever calling shuf to print the entire contents of mediafiles.txt in a random order, then has a second loop to read 1 line at a time from the shuf output and store that line in the variable line.

Both then test $line to see if it contains VIDEO_TS or not and populate the cmd array with the appropriate command plus arguments using cmd=( 'echo' 'vlc' '--fullscreen' ) or cmd=( 'echo' 'mpv' ). They then add the contents of line to the end of the array using cmd+=( "$line" ) and then print the contents of the array to played-log.txt and then execute the command stored in the array with "${cmd[@]}".

The only difference between the 2 is the first spawns a subshell to call shuf once per file to be played while the 2nd spawns a subshell to call shuf once for the whole of the input file and then read once per line to be played. The second one will probably run a bit faster but I doubt if you'll notice it or care since you're playing media between each line of input.

Remove the 'echo's when done testing to make sure it does what you want.

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  • Part 1: Thanks for all the replies. I was in the mindset that writing in bashrc was writing just in the terminal, but I'll format better in future. I programmed in C at uni many years ago. I've never written much in bash. I might have written those functions devoid of understanding and by trial and error however ~+ was intentional, but there also was a typo where I appended for VIDEO_TS. None of this is really material. Commented Mar 27, 2024 at 1:42
  • Part 2 The way while statements read is odd to me; I presume they read the whole file in at once. There are a couple of things I don't understand, even the line variable in my own code. Particularly I'm confused by the way shuf interacts. I mainly understand your first function, except for why you're cmd+=( "$line" ) and "${cmd[@]}". As for the second of your solutions, is this shuffling the whole file and then reading sequentially? i.e. done < <(shuf ~/mediafiles.txt) ? Why are there two < < Thanks Commented Mar 27, 2024 at 1:42
  • For answers to all your questions read unix.stackexchange.com/a/169765/133219, man7.org/linux/man-pages/man1/shuf.1.html, mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/…. and mywiki.wooledge.org/BashFAQ/001#Input_source_selection. Let us know if you have any followup question after reading those. Commented Mar 27, 2024 at 2:13
  • Thanks, great links. I need to read the first one again more thoroughly when I have the time. So shuf -n 1 I take it only outputs one line at a time. The Input_source_selection link was very helpful. The last link though I found it hard to understand. So "${cmd[@]}" will execute arguments as a command? Strange that we still need to echo them. However, I still don't understand what cmd+=( "$line" ) is doing....thanks again Commented Mar 28, 2024 at 3:30
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    Legend, thanks for the comprehensive explanation. Commented Mar 28, 2024 at 11:40

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