api.rst

API Documentation

.. currentmodule:: beets.library

This page describes the internal API of beets' core. It's a work in progress---since beets is an application first and a library second, its API has been mainly undocumented until recently. Please file bugs if you run across incomplete or incorrect docs here.

The :class:`Library` object is the central repository for data in beets. It represents a database containing songs, which are :class:`Item` instances, and groups of items, which are :class:`Album` instances.

The Library Class

.. autoclass:: Library(path, directory[, path_formats[, replacements]])

    .. automethod:: items

    .. automethod:: albums

    .. automethod:: get_item

    .. automethod:: get_album

    .. automethod:: add

    .. automethod:: add_album

    .. automethod:: transaction

Transactions

The :class:`Library` class provides the basic methods necessary to access and manipulate its contents. To perform more complicated operations atomically, or to interact directly with the underlying SQLite database, you must use a transaction. For example:

lib = Library()
with lib.transaction() as tx:
    items = lib.items(query)
    lib.add_album(list(items))

.. currentmodule:: beets.dbcore.db

.. autoclass:: Transaction
    :members:

Model Classes

The two model entities in beets libraries, :class:`Item` and :class:`Album`, share a base class, :class:`Model`, that provides common functionality and ORM-like abstraction.

The fields model classes can be accessed using attributes (dots, as in item.artist) or items (brackets, as in item['artist']). The :class:`Model` base class provides some methods that resemble dict objects.

Model base

.. currentmodule:: beets.dbcore

.. autoclass:: Model
    :members:

Item

.. currentmodule:: beets.library

.. autoclass:: Item
    :members:

Album

.. autoclass:: Album
    :members: