Restricting user input to available format -F

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Add -v flag to your command line you run youtube-dl with, copy the whole output and insert it here. It should look similar to one below (replace it with your log inserted between triple ```):

$ youtube-dl -v <your command line>
[debug] System config: []
[debug] User config: []
[debug] Command-line args: [u'-v', u'http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKcj']
[debug] Encodings: locale cp1251, fs mbcs, out cp866, pref cp1251
[debug] youtube-dl version 2017.02.17
[debug] Python version 2.7.11 - Windows-2003Server-5.2.3790-SP2
[debug] exe versions: ffmpeg N-75573-g1d0487f, ffprobe N-75573-g1d0487f, rtmpdump 2.4
[debug] Proxy map: {}
...
<end of log>

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If the purpose of this issue is a site support request please provide all kinds of example URLs support for which should be included (replace following example URLs by yours):

• Single video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BaW_jenozKc
• Single video: https://youtu.be/BaW_jenozKc
• Playlist: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL4lCao7KL_QFVb7Iudeipvc2BCavECqzc

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[dstftw]

What's your question?

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I am creating a batch file to prompt for the desired format code to be entered, is there any way I can ensure only a valid one is entered? For example a video has format 249, 250, 140, 171 and others so I would be looking to limit the input to one of those formats, plus bestaudio, worstaudio, m4a, mp4 etc.

This is a sample from my batch file:

set /p URL=Enter URL to download
youtube-dl.exe --ignore-errors --list-formats "%URL%"

set /p UserInput=For example, to download the worst quality video-only format you can type worst, enter choice:

youtube-dl.exe --add-metadata --embed-thumbnail --ignore-errors --format "%UserInput%" --output "%CD%\Temp%%(title)s.%%(ext)s" "%URL%"

[dstftw]

Run it with -F or --dump-json and parse available formats from output. Then check input against parsed format list.

[TriggerThumb]

Any idea how I would do that? I have a variable assigned as %userinput% which is used to assign a value for --format, this works fine as long as a valid format code is entered.

I somehow need to restrict the input to a valid format but no idea how to parse the list.

[dstftw]

I've already pointed out how to do so, the rest is implementation part related to programming language/environment you use that is offtopic here. Ask google.