-g, I do not know which format the url is for

[Mitchell-Findley]

When I use the -g to get the temp link to a source file. I need the format as well. If you could add an option that outputs the format that that the link is, especially after specifying a preference format list. So I know which format it grabs else it is very hard for me to use the URL.

[phihag]

It sounds like you are calling youtube-dl from another program. If that's the case, use the -j option to get information about the video as JSON, which you can easily parse in any programming language.