Recursively scan directories for mp3s and pass them to mplayer

rm -rf /tmp/playlist.tmp && find ~/mp3 -name *.mp3 > /tmp/playlist.tmp && mplayer -playlist /tmp/playlist.tmp -shuffle -loop 0 | grep Playing
The command first deletes any old playlist calles playlist.tmp under /tmp. After that it recursively searches all direcotries under ~/mp3 and stores the result in /tmp/playlist.tmp. After havin created the playlist, the command will execute mplayer which will shuffle through the playlist. This command is aliased to m is aliased to `rm -rf /tmp/playlist.tmp && find ~/mp3 -name *.mp3 > /tmp/playlist.tmp && mplayer -playlist /tmp/playlist.tmp -shuffle -loop 0 | grep Playing' in my ~/.bashrc.
Sample Output 
mplayer: could not connect to socket
mplayer: No such file or directory
Failed to open LIRC support. You will not be able to use your remote control.
Playing /home/hhanff/mp3/Alben/Sunrise Ave/On the way to wonderland/01-Choose to Be Me.mp3.

2
By: hhanff
2010-03-23 21:33:44
find grep rm
7

1 Alternatives + Submit Alt

What Others Think

By the way: Can anybody figure out how to do the same thing without creating a temporary playlist? I tried to pass the results of find to mplayer via xargs, but then the keyboard controls of mplayer won't function any more....
hhanff · 819 weeks and 3 days ago
What about 'find ~/mp3 -iname *.mp3 -exec mplayer -shuffle -loop {} \;' ? I am not at a *nix machine right now, so I can't test it, but something like this would not require a playlist.
philthomson · 819 weeks and 3 days ago
The '-iname' option on find will help if you have mp3's where the extension is .MP3 as opposed to .mp3
philthomson · 819 weeks and 3 days ago
"find blablabla | mplayer -playlist -" will build a playlist from stdin. Also, you should write "\*.mp3" instead of simply "*.mp3", otherwise your shell will expand * before it gets to find, and find will get a list of *-mp3's in cwd
benjamin · 819 weeks and 3 days ago
@philtomson: I found the same page yesterday but had not idea how to make it work... @ benjamin: find ~/mp3 -name "*.mp3" | mplayer -playlist - -shuffle -loop 0 does not allow to control mplayer with keyboard any more.... e.g. "next song" by hitting return... :/ Here's a better version which filters out all "audio books": rm -rf /tmp/playlist.tmp && find ~/mp3 -name *.mp3 -not -name 'H?rb?cher' > /tmp/playlist.tmp && mplayer -playlist /tmp/playlist.tmp -shuffle -loop 0 | grep Playing
hhanff · 819 weeks and 3 days ago
Okay, this works: for i in "$(find . -type d)";do d=( $i/*.mp3 ); files=( "${files[@]}" "${d[@]}" );done; mplayer -shuffle -loop 0 "${files[@]}" ugly as hell though :D
benjamin · 819 weeks and 2 days ago
Sin!!! That's a big one...
hhanff · 819 weeks and 2 days ago

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