XSPF

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**XSPF**
File extension:	`.xspf`
MIME type:	`application/xspf+xml`
Developed by:	The Xiph.org Foundation
Type of format:	Playlist
Extended from:	XML

XML Shareable Playlist Format (XSPF), pronounced spiff, is an XML-based playlist format for digital media, sponsored by the Xiph.Org Foundation.

XSPF is a data format for sharing the kind of playlist that can be played on a personal computer or portable device. In the same way that any user on any computer can open any web page, XSPF is intended to provide portability for playlists.

1 Features
2 History
3 Specification
4 Content Resolution
5 Software
6 External links

[edit] Features

A playlist format like M3U or ASX
MIME content-type of application/xspf+xml
Patent-free (no patents by the primary authors).
Specification under a Creative Commons license.
XML, like Atom
Unicode support
Cross platform support

[edit] History

XSPF was created by an ad-hoc working group which kicked off in February 2004, achieved rough consensus on version 0 in April 2004, worked on implementations and fine tuning throughout summer and fall 2004, and declared the tuned version to be version 1 in January 2005.

XSPF is not yet an Internet standard, and is not a recommendation of any standards body.

[edit] Specification

For detailed documentation, see the XSPF Version 1 specification.

[edit] Content Resolution

Traditionally playlists have been composed of file paths that pointed to individual songs. This allowed a playlist to be played locally on one machine or shared if the song file paths were URLs accessible to more than one machine (i.e. on the web). XSPF's meta-data rich open format has permitted a new kind of playlist sharing called content resolution.

In the simplest terms, content resolution is the local recreation of a playlist based on song meta-data. A content resolver will open XSPF playlists and search a music catalog for every song with <creator><album> and <title> tags, then recreate the playlist with the available matching songs. A music catalog may be a collection of music files on a local disk, a music subscription service like Yahoo! Music Unlimited or some other searchable music archive. The end result are shareable playlists that are not tied to a specific collection or music service.

Currently Mobster for iTunes (Windows and Mac) and Windows beta versions of MusicIP are the only functional content resolvers. Mobster is known to open XSPF files from Musicmobs, Last.fm and Yahoo! Music Unlimited.

[edit] Software

Amarok
VLC (stand-alone player, available on every major platform)
Visonair.tv Stream Directory (uses XSPF for server list download)
libSpiff (C++ XSPF library)
Visonair.tv Player (supports XSPF files)
PHP4XSPF - a set of PHP classes that aims to make it as simple as possible to create XSPF files using PHP.
XSPF for Ruby - a pure-Ruby parser and generator library