Create Album for First Track, but Add to Album for Subsequent Tracks

[Tyler Wiebe]

Okay, to start off, I'd like to show what I have working.

Form1:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.IO;
using System.Linq;
using System.Windows.Forms;
 
namespace CustomListTest
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public static string MusicFolder = @"C:\Users\User\Desktop\My Music";
 
        public Form1()
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
 
        private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
        {
            if (Directory.Exists(MusicFolder))
            {
                List<string> ImportList = new List<string>(Directory.GetFiles(MusicFolder, "*.mp3", SearchOption.AllDirectories).ToList<string>());
                foreach (string FilePath in ImportList)
                {
                    _Library._Music.Add(new _Artist(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 14), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 15), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 26), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 21), FilePath));
                }
 
                foreach (_Artist Artist in _Library._Music)
                {
                    foreach (_Album Album in Artist._Albums)
                    {
                        foreach(_Track Track in Album._Tracks)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine("Artist: " + Artist._Name + " -- Album: " + Album._Title + ": " + Album._Year + " -- Track#: " + Track._Number + " - Title: " + Track._Title + " -- FilePath: " + Track._FilePath);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }
}
 

Custom Classes:

_GetDetailsOf.File()

namespace CustomListTest
{
    public class _GetDetailsOf
    {
        private static Shell32.Shell ShellObj = new Shell32.Shell();
        private static Shell32.Folder FolderObj;
        private static Shell32.FolderItem FolderItemObj;
        private static string FileName;
        private static string FileLocation;
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Used to get details of a specified file
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="FilePath"></param>
        /// <param name="ColumnNumber">Artist: 13 | Album: 14 | Year: 15 | Track Number: 26 | Title: 21</param>
        /// <returns></returns>
        public static string File(string FilePath, int ColumnNumber)
        {
            FileName = FilePath.Substring(FilePath.LastIndexOf("\\") + 1);
            FileLocation = FilePath.Substring(0, FilePath.LastIndexOf("\\"));
            FolderObj = ShellObj.NameSpace(FileLocation);
            FolderItemObj = FolderObj.ParseName(FileName);
            return FolderObj.GetDetailsOf(FolderItemObj, ColumnNumber);
        }
    }
}
 

_Library:

using System.Collections.Generic;
 
namespace CustomListTest
{
    public class _Library
    {
        public static List<_Artist> _Music = new List<_Artist>();
    }
 
    public class _Artist
    {
        public string _Name;
 
        public List<_Album> _Albums = new List<_Album>();
 
        public _Artist(string Artist, string Album, string Year, string TrackNumber, string Title, string FilePath)
        {
            _Name = Artist;
            _Albums.Add(new _Album(Album, Year, TrackNumber, Title, FilePath));
        }
    }
 
    public class _Album
    {
        public string _Title;
        public string _Year;
 
        public List<_Track> _Tracks = new List<_Track>();
 
        public _Album(string Album, string Year, string TrackNumber, string Title, string FilePath)
        {
            _Title = Album;
            _Year = Year;
            _Tracks.Add(new _Track(TrackNumber, Title, FilePath));
        }
    }
 
    public class _Track
    {
        public string _Number;
        public string _Title;
        public string _FilePath;
 
        public _Track(string TrackNumber, string Title, string FilePath)
        {
            _Number = TrackNumber;
            _Title = Title;
            _FilePath = FilePath;
        }
    }
}
 

Now the problem I'm having is in Form1, located at #region CurrentProblem:

        private void button1_Click(object sender, System.EventArgs e)
        {
            if (Directory.Exists(MusicFolder))
            {
                List<string> ImportList = new List<string>(Directory.GetFiles(MusicFolder, "*.mp3", SearchOption.AllDirectories).ToList<string>());
                foreach (string FilePath in ImportList)
                {
                    #region CurrentProblem
 
                    _Library._Music.Add(new _Artist(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 14), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 15), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 26), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 21), FilePath));
 
                    #endregion
                }
 
                foreach (_Artist Artist in _Library._Music)
                {
                    foreach (_Album Album in Artist._Albums)
                    {
                        foreach(_Track Track in Album._Tracks)
                        {
                            Console.WriteLine("Artist: " + Artist._Name + " -- Album: " + Album._Title + ": " + Album._Year + " -- Track#: " + Track._Number + " - Title: " + Track._Title + " -- FilePath: " + Track._FilePath);
                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
 

I need to know how to do something like this:

                foreach (string FilePath in ImportList)
                {
                    if (_Library._Music.Contains(_Artist._Name(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13))))
                    {
                        if (_Library._Music[_Library._Music.IndexOf(_Artist._Name(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13)))]._Albums.Contains(_Album._Title(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 14)))
                        {
                            _Library._Music[_Library._Music.IndexOf(_Artist._Name(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13)))]._Albums[]._Tracks.Add(new _Track(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 26), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 21), FilePath));
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            _Library._Music[_Library._Music.IndexOf(_Artist._Name(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13)))]._Albums.Add(new _Album(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 14), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 15), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 26), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 21), FilePath));
                        }
                    }
                    else
                    {
                        _Library._Music.Add(new _Artist(_GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 14), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 15), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 26), _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 21), FilePath));
                    }
                }
 

I know that looks terrible, and I know it's incorrect, but that's what I need your help with.

I need a way so that if _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13) returns an artist that already is in _Library._Music, it'll then check if the album exists, and if the album exists, it'll add the file to album as a new _Track. Hopefully you understand this.

And just in case you're wondering why I'm doing this and not this:

.Add(GetDetailsOf(file, 13) + "|" + GetDetailsOf(file, 14) + "|" + GetDetailsOf(file, 15) + "|" + GetDetailsOf(file, 26) + "|" + GetDetailsOf(file, 21) + "|" + FilePath);

and then retrieving it with .Split['|'], is because of the simple fact that the '|' can be placed in Artist, Album, and Title values, so it'd get a bit hard on those files. I'm not say I have any, but I'd like to get rid of the possibility of that happening.

So any help at all would be very much appreciated.

[GaryTexmo]

I'll be honest, I'm having a hell of a time understanding your code, so before we get to the heart of the matter, here's a few tips :)

Tip #1: Why are you putting an underscore character before all your object/variable names? I've noticed people use underscores to denote private members in a class (others use m_) but class names generally don't have it. I see you have public members as well (you can also rewrite these as properties if you wanted, but that's just fine) so anything exposed publicly should really exclude the underscore. It just makes your code a bit harder to read.

Tip #2: Using an integer to denote the column number makes it very hard to read. I'd suggest using a constant, or better yet, an enum. Something like...

Artist: 13 | Album: 14 | Year: 15 | Track Number: 26 | Title: 21

public enum FileDetailsColumn
{
  Artist = 13,
  Album = 14,
  Year = 15,
  Title = 21,
  TrackNumber = 26
}

Then you can change your GetDetailsOf.File method to take a parameter of type FileDetailsColumn (instead of an int). This changes your calls to something like...

GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, FileDetailsColumn.Artist)

This has much more meaning to someone else reading the code.

Now, to your actual question...

I need a way so that if _GetDetailsOf.File(FilePath, 13) returns an artist that already is in _Library._Music, it'll then check if the album exists, and if the album exists, it'll add the file to album as a new _Track. Hopefully you understand this.

What you have suggested is a bit hard to read but you've pretty clearly defined what you want. Your Library class is a list of Artists, so you should be able to fairly easily find out if your Artist exists in there; however, you won't be able to use Contains as this method will take an object of type Artist and it sounds like you just want to know if the Artist's Name exists in the library. So you'll need to add a method to your Library class to find this for you.

public class Library
{
  public static List<Artist> Music = new List<Artist>();
 
  public bool GetArtistByName(string artistName)
  {
    Artist retArtist = null;
 
    foreach (Artist a in Music)
    {
      if (a.Name == artistName)
      {
        retArtist = a;
        break;
      }
    }
 
    return retArtist;
  }
}

This will let you find out if your artist name exists already. Also, to avoid making many, many calls to GetDetailsOf.File(...) load them into variables at the start (You could also consider making a class with a LoadFromFile method).

string artistName = GetDetailsOf.File(...);
string albumTitle = ...
string albumYear = ...
string trackNumber = ...
string trackTitle = ...
 
Artist artist = Library.GetArtistByName(artistName);
if (artist != null)
{
  // Artist exists, now go find the album in a similar fashion
}
else
{
  // Artist doesn't exist, take appropriate action (I assume you'll build a new one and add it to Libary.Music)
}

Hopefully that gives you an idea... you'll probably want to add a similar method to the Artist class called GetAlbumByTitle or GetAlbumByTitleAndYear so you can search an artist's album list and find any that match your criteria. If you anticipate multiple matches in your Artist and Album lists, you might want to actually return a List object instead of a single item.

Hopefully that helps you out and gives you a place to start. Feel free to post back with any more questions :)

[Tyler Wiebe]

Thank you for your reply, it's exactly what I needed, but one another note, I'd like to reply to your tips.

1) The reason I'm using underscores is because if you start typing anything, the side list that appears to show the closest match, or previous used item starting with that text, is useful, but I find it easier to use with the underscore for my own created objects, because if I type in the underscore, all of my custom objects are right there and not through out the entire list.

2) The reason I didn't use an enum is because, 1) I've barely ever used them. 2) I've practically mesmerized those numbers. 3) Even if I forget, the code

        /// <summary>
        /// Used to get details of a specified file
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="FilePath"></param>
        /// <param name="ColumnNumber">Artist: 13 | Album: 14 | Year: 15 | Track Number: 26 | Title: 21</param>
        /// <returns></returns>
 

displays it well enough for me. If I needed access to all of the numbers (over 280), I would definitely use an enum.

And on a side note, this is just a very bad rough draft, which will be put to full use now thanks to you. I do feel rather stupid for not thinking of it myself.

And on another side note, the only programing courses I took, were two years ago in high school, and they were a beginners class to C++ and another beginners class to html & xml. I've taught myself C# from scratch because I thought it'd be fun, and I was right, I'm having a blast.

And once again, thanks for your help, I really appreciate it, it's the final piece I needed for my speech recognition program running the axWindowsMediaPlayer1 plugin in it.

[Tyler Wiebe]

Actually, there's one more thing I'd like to ask. By any chance would you know how to serialize that list into xml or something so that it'll load quickly?

[GaryTexmo]

1) And if that's your system, that's your system :D Most folks tend to try to copy Microsoft's approach to keep things fairly standard. For internal stuff using the underscore (or m_) is fairly standard, but for public properties (which a public member effectively mimics) the standard is to not use that. Also keep in mind that as your program grows, your system kind of falls apart since you'll have a lot of custom classes. Note that you can also organize things by namespace (for class names at any rate) and can find what you want by first looking in the namespace. It's entirely up to you, I'm just pointing these things out so you're informed :)

2) In the above case and this one, it's more about readability. You know what those numbers mean and have them memorized but other people reading your code or working with it in the future haven't. It makes your code a lot more maintainable when you use enums. Again, it's up to you of course, but I'd highly recommend it.

As for how to serialize it, it's actually quite easy :) Have a look at the following links:
http://www.switchonthecode.com/tutor...-serialization
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/815813

There are many more that you can find via google and if you get stuck, feel free to post here for help (though please make a separate thread for it). Good luck! :)