Option to combine -o and -g

[IamCarbonMan]

• I've verified and I assure that I'm running youtube-dl 2016.04.13
• At least skimmed through README and most notably FAQ and BUGS sections
• Searched the bugtracker for similar issues including closed ones

What is the purpose of your issue?

• Bug report (encountered problems with youtube-dl)
• Site support request (request for adding support for a new site)
• Feature request (request for a new functionality)
• Question
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Description of your issue, suggested solution and other information

I use Kodi Media Center for all my entertainment and media management. This program is capable of playing streaming video in many formats from an url written in a .strm file. I would like to use youtube-dl to output a playlist of music videos in a specific format (say, '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' which will put playlist files into a common folder, but instead of actually downloading the video, just echo the url (as given by the -g option) into the file. I have actually accomplished this using a bash script which parses the output of youtube-dl --get-filename --get-url but it is a very hacky solution. Any chance this could become a feature?

EDIT: To give an example, I would like to be able to run youtube-dl -f best -g -o '%(playlist)s/%(playlist_index)s - %(title)s.%(ext)s' https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLY5f8vtstsfjedMi6VHRAeFV85Xc_VoKG and see afterwards a subdirectory in the working dir of youtube-dl, which is named by the title of the playlist (in this case, NateWantsToBattle Songs) and in that subfolder would be a number of files named according to their order in the playlist and title (in this case, one would be named "NateWantsToBattle Songs/01 - twenty one pilots - Stressed Out [NateWantsToBattle feat. ShueTube].mp4") and each file would contain only the plain-text url of the video as shown by -g (the example above would contain the url string shown here).

[yan12125]

Could you give some concrete video links and your expected output?

[kn00tcn]

great idea & it does have links... does github not list the time that OP's post was edited?

[Hrxn]

Well, no. Edits don't activate notifications and alerts either..

[jaimeMF]

I think this can be easily achieved with a script:

#!/bin/sh
youtube-dl -j "$@" | python -c '
import sys
import json
import os
for line in sys.stdin.readlines():
    info = json.loads(line)
    fname = info["_filename"]
    dir = os.path.dirname(fname)
    if dir and not os.path.exists(dir):
        os.makedirs(dir)
    with open(fname, "wt") as f:
        f.write(info["url"])
'

I don't find it hacky, although others may disagree.

[IamCarbonMan]

I am now using this script and it does exactly what I wanted. I forked the repository and was gonna make a PR with the required changes, but I don't know how to properly do this in the context of youtube-dl's workflow (it looks to me like a file is created in the same function as downloading something to it, and while I suppose I could probably make it download a pastebin of the url somehow, it seems, well, too hacky. How could this be integrated into the application in a more elegant way?