[API Request] Endpoint to retrieve metadata about multiple songs at once

[dweymouth]

Type of change

API Extension

Proposal description

I am proposing a new endpoint, GetSongs which should behave exactly like the existing GetSong, except that it accepts multiple IDs and returns info for all the songs requested.

This is useful for clients to refresh metadata on an arbitrary set of songs at once, e.g. for a local play queue.

Backward compatibility impact

New API, no backward compatability impact

Backward compatibility

• No backward compatibility impact.

API details

The response payload should be the same as GetSong except with multiple nested song elements instead of just one.

Security impacts

No response

Potential issues

No response

Alternative solutions

Other suggested name could be GetSongsInfo. Or an alternate solution is to just extend the existing GetSong endpoint to accept multiple IDs, and keep the naming even though it could now be used to get multiple songs.

[Tolriq]

Do not forget to select the proper type of change.

Not sure about the naming, this is one of the global missing feature that for example force me to use search3 to get all the songs. Would keep that for that purpose if we one day decide on a proper paging system for those.

Maybe something more like getSongsInfo, getAlbumsInfo and getArtistsInfo (so with an s) that accept multiple ids? For consistency and more distinct naming?

With that said, I like the idea, the less request the more efficient things are.

But we should maybe also first define that api extension supporting servers must support post queries, to allow sending larger list of ids?

[deluan]

That could be a discussion all on its own. If we're doing that then the Create/UpdatePlaylist endpoints should support POST requests as well.

I think this is a point that needs clarification in the docs: The original Subsonic server (and all its forks, Airsonic, Madsonic...) accepts POST for all endpoints, and at least one client uses it: play:Sub. I also implemented this in Navidrome to support play:Sub

[Tolriq]

Don't know how the other servers support is, and the format of the post. Might worth a proper API definition.

[deluan]

We can basically document how it works in Subsonic.

[Tolriq]

Well if you know how be my guest :) Easy to add in api-reference.

[spl0k]

Supysonic also supports POST and this support was added something like 10 years ago because some clients used it. I don't remember which one, maybe it was the official Android app.

The format is basically each arg in the query string is now a form field.

[dweymouth]

I actually don't need this API anymore at the moment since I figured out how to properly update state in my local play queue model. ;) But it still would be a nice API for any clients that save a play queue, or local playlists, across restarts, and need to fetch updated play counts, ratings, etc. for those tracks.