save as txt instead of json

[ClaireCJS]

Instead of json

I just want a TXT of the lyrics

[allerter]

If you're using the command line tool, currently there's no way to save lyrics as TXT. Otherwise, when calling for example Artist.save_lyrics() you can change the format of the file using the extension parameter.

[kqvanity]

@allerter How about redirecting to stdout instead of writing to disk?

[ClaireCJS]

I'm using this as part of a system. So I'm not invoking it manually.

And I’ve had problems with needing a TXT file, as well as with being able to manipulate the results.

Here’s how I got around it.

I wrote a json-to-txt postprocessor explicitly for the output generated by LyricsGenius.exe

Since the output filename is variable, and may or may not exist, it’s kind of hard to look at the file to know if it exists and is valid. [However, the variable output filename is VERY useful as a sanity check for whether the correct lyrics were found, so I quite liked it in the end.]

So I have to actually have to:

1. create a temp file (“__”)
2. run the LyricsGenius.exe downloader
3. check what the latest file in the folder is (i have a set-latest-filename.bat I use)
4. if the latest file is my “__” file, consider the downloader unsuccessful
5. if the latest file is NOT my “__” file, store the latest file’s filename. That’s our download. We’ll need to use it later.
6. Check if that download is 0 bytes or not
7. If it’s ≤0 bytes, delete it and consider it unsuccessful (i have a TCC-specific delete-zero-byte-files.bat one could modify)
8. If it’s >0 bytes, consider it successful

It’s a bit cumbersome. If there was simply an option to specify the output file, it would have saved me all that.

Caveat: The option may be there and maybe I simply missed it and wasted my own time 😂

[allerter]

@kqvanity, sadly no. The CLI is pretty simple and can only save as JSON. For anything more, you'd need to use Python.

[kqvanity]

@allerter
I'm for json as well. I just want it to pipe its output to jq right away, instead of it writing & reading from a file. If one want to save file then > filex.json

[allerter]

@kqvanity, simply not possible with the current state of the CLI. If you have more questions regarding the CLI, feel free to open another issue. I'll lock this for now