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  1. Picard
  2. PICARD-990

Picard not meeting formal ID3 standard for TXXX frames

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    • 1.3.2, 1.4
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      For MBID artist and album artist fields, multiple values are possible. Picard tags this in ID3 as multiple-value TXXX fields. That's not allowed for TXXX per the id3 specification, which notes that "All text information frames supports multiple strings, stored as a null separated list" but then carefully distinguishes "text information frames" from "user defined text information frame" which has an entirely separate definition with exactly two strings:

      <Header for 'User defined text information frame', ID: "TXXX">
      Text encoding $xx
      Description <text string according to encoding> $00 (00)
      Value <text string according to encoding>

      The extension of TXXX to have additional values is a logical one, but several major id3 implementations lack support for this non-standard usage and are unlikely to ever add it (unless, I guess, an id3v2.5 standard comes out).

      Which leaves two options for full compatibility: encoding it as a single string with a deliminator other than 0x00 (',', ';', '/', etc would all work fine) or separate tags like "TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Artist Id 1" "TXXX:MusicBrainz Album Artist Id 2" as needed, since the same description can't be repeated.

      I'm not sure if any other fields are currently being encoded as multiple-value TXXX fields, but this would apply to them as well.

            Unassigned Unassigned
            tungolcraft Stephen
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