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Does /var/playlists contain ALL the playlists (as Pim suggested)


No. Pim is right. /var/playlists contains ALL of the playlists. It's built by catenating the *0 files of each playlist, in FID order into one big file. It doesn't need delimiters because the length of each playlist is already in the database file.


Of course. Juggling with lots of unknowns at present and that slipped my mind. Makes sense to me now. Does it HAVE to be constructed in that order (i.e. playlists in their fid order)? Or could the playlists be strung together in any order?

BTW, thanks for the tip about the database records containing an index into the tags file to specify the tag for the following data item. It would have taken me some time to figure that one.

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As Bonzi says, if you're just slapping a bunch of *0 and *1 files on the player, you can avoid generating anything in the /empeg/var directory, and let the player rebuild them itself.


I understand your point, but I like the idea of having everything ready on the server for a simple rsync, which can be relatively quick compared to a database rebuild. I always seem to want to sync the player last thing before I have to go out with it and then I get complained at for the delay:-(

So my theory is keep the local copy up to date (part of my nightly updates that read in the iTunes XML file) and be ready for 'Instant Sync'. In fact I think I'll copyright that phrase:-)