Accessing songs and playlists from ITunes using C#

• Download source files - 131 Kb
• Download demo project - 27.6 Kb

Introduction

This is a simple example showing how to interact with ITunes version 6. The sample shows how to connect to Itunes version 6 using C# and how to get the list of songs in the itunes library or in the saved playlists.

The project was built in VS 2005. A reference to the COM object ITunes 1.6 needs to be added to your project. You can get the itunes SDK from here. The help file included in the zip was fairly useful.

Digging around on the internet, I found this site which helped me get started on this little project.

Using the code

I think the comments within the code are self explanatory:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.IO;
using System.Data;
using System.Drawing;
using System.Text;
using System.Windows.Forms;
using iTunesLib;
namespace WindowsApplication1
{
    public partial class Form1 : Form
    {
        public Form1()
        {
             InitializeComponent();
        }
        // initialize Itunes application connection
        iTunesApp itunes = new iTunesLib.iTunesApp();
        private void Form1_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)
        {
             // get main library playlist
             IITLibraryPlaylist mainLibrary = itunes.LibraryPlaylist;
             // get list of all playlists defined in 
             // Itunes and add them to the combobox
             foreach (IITPlaylist pl in itunes.LibrarySource.Playlists)
             {
                   comboBox1.Items.Add(pl.Name);
             }
             // get the tracks within the mainlibrary
             GetTracks((IITPlaylist)mainLibrary);
             // set the datagridview1 datasource to the datatable.
             dataGridView1.DataSource = dataTable1;
        }

        // getthe tracks from the the specified playlist
        private void GetTracks(IITPlaylist playlist)
        {
             long totalfilesize = 0;
             dataTable1.Rows.Clear();
             // get the collection of tracks from the playlist
             IITTrackCollection tracks = playlist.Tracks;
             int numTracks = tracks.Count;
             for (int currTrackIndex = 1; 
                 currTrackIndex <= numTracks; currTrackIndex++)             
             {
                  DataRow drnew = dataTable1.NewRow(); 
                  // get the track from the current tracklist                 
                  IITTrack currTrack = tracks[currTrackIndex];
                  drnew["artist"] = currTrack.Artist;
                  drnew["song name"] = currTrack.Name;
                  drnew["album"] = currTrack.Album;
                  drnew["genre"] = currTrack.Genre;
                  // if track is a fiile, then get the file 
                  // location on the drive. 
                  if (currTrack.Kind == ITTrackKind.ITTrackKindFile)
                  {
                      IITFileOrCDTrack file = (IITFileOrCDTrack)currTrack;
                      if (file.Location != null)
                      {
                           FileInfo fi = new FileInfo(file.Location);
                               if (fi.Exists)
                               {
                                    drnew["FileLocation"] = file.Location;
                                    totalfilesize += fi.Length;
                               }
                               else
                                    drnew["FileLocation"] = 
                                             "not found " + file.Location;
                      }
                  }
                  dataTable1.Rows.Add(drnew);
              }
              lbl_numsongs.Text = 
                  "number of songs: " + dataTable1.Rows.Count.ToString() + 
                  ", total file size: " + 
                  (totalfilesize / 1024.00 / 1024.00).ToString("#,### mb");
          }
          private void comboBox1_SelectedIndexChanged(object sender, 
                                                              EventArgs e)
          {
              // get list of tracks from selected playlist
              string playlist = comboBox1.SelectedItem.ToString();
              foreach (IITPlaylist pl in itunes.LibrarySource.Playlists)
              {
                   if (pl.Name == playlist)
                   {
                        GetTracks(pl);
                        break;
                   }
              }
          }
     }
}

Hope you find this useful, any comments/feedback appreciated.