Extracting FLV meta tags with Python

I’ve stolen this code from http://code.activestate.com/recipes/457406/ which in turn was stolen / ported from http://inlet-media.de/flvtool2, made some small fixes in bugs related to the date conversion function, object and array unmarshaling, file name hardcoded, etc… If you want to learn more about the FLV format and metatags read Acrobat’s Video File Format Specification Version 10

from struct import unpack
from datetime import datetime


class FLVReader(dict):
    """
    Reads metadata from FLV files
    """

    # Tag types
    AUDIO = 8
    VIDEO = 9
    META = 18
    UNDEFINED = 0

    def __init__(self, filename):
        """
        Pass the filename of an flv file and it will return a dictionary of meta
        data.
        """
        # Lock on to the file
        self.file = open(filename, 'rb')
        self.signature = self.file.read(3)
        assert self.signature == 'FLV', 'Not an flv file'
        self.version = self.readbyte()
        self.typeFlags = self.readbyte()
        self.dataOffset = self.readint()
        extraDataLen = self.dataOffset - self.file.tell()
        self.extraData = self.file.read(extraDataLen)
        self.readtag()

    def readtag(self):
        self.readint()  # unknown
        tagType = self.readbyte()
        self.read24bit()  # dataSize
        self.read24bit()  # timeStamp
        self.readint()  # unknown
        if tagType == self.AUDIO:
            print "Can't handle audio tags yet"
        elif tagType == self.VIDEO:
            print "Can't handle video tags yet"
        elif tagType == self.META:
            # endpos = self.file.tell() + dataSize
            self.event = self.readAMFData()
            metaData = self.readAMFData()
            # We got the meta data.
            # Our job is done.
            # We are complete
            self.update(metaData)
        elif tagType == self.UNDEFINED:
            print "Can't handle undefined tags yet"

    def readint(self):
        data = self.file.read(4)
        return unpack('>I', data)[0]

    def readshort(self):
        data = self.file.read(2)
        return unpack('>H', data)[0]

    def readbyte(self):
        data = self.file.read(1)
        return unpack('B', data)[0]

    def read24bit(self):
        b1, b2, b3 = unpack('3B', self.file.read(3))
        return (b1 << 16) + (b2 << 8) + b3

    def readAMFData(self, dataType=None):
        if dataType is None:
            dataType = self.readbyte()
        funcs = {
            0: self.readAMFDouble,
            1: self.readAMFBoolean,
            2: self.readAMFString,
            3: self.readAMFObject,
            8: self.readAMFMixedArray,
            10: self.readAMFArray,
            11: self.readAMFDate
        }
        func = funcs[dataType]
        if callable(func):
            return func()

    def readAMFDouble(self):
        return unpack('>d', self.file.read(8))[0]

    def readAMFBoolean(self):
        return self.readbyte() == 1

    def readAMFString(self):
        size = self.readshort()
        return self.file.read(size)

    def readAMFObject(self):
        result = {}
        data = True
        while data:
            size = self.readshort()
            key = self.file.read(size)
            dataType = self.readbyte()
            if not key and dataType == 9:
                break
            data = self.readAMFData(dataType)
            result[key] = data
        return result

    def readAMFMixedArray(self):
        size = self.readint()
        result = {}
        i = 0
        while i < size:
            key = self.readAMFString()
            dataType = self.readbyte()
            if not key and dataType == 9:
                break
            result[key] = self.readAMFData(dataType)
            i += 1
        return result

    def readAMFArray(self):
        size = self.readint()
        result = []
        i = 0
        while i < size:
            result.append(self.readAMFData())
            i += 1
        return result

    def readAMFDate(self):
        date = self.readAMFDouble() / 1000
        self.readshort()  # localoffset
        return datetime.fromtimestamp(date)

if __name__ == '__main__':
    import sys
    from pprint import pprint
    if len(sys.argv) == 1:
        print 'Usage: %s filename [filename]...' % sys.argv[0]
        print 'Where filename is a .flv file'
        print 'eg. %s myfile.flv' % sys.argv[0]
    for fn in sys.argv[1:]:
        x = FLVReader(fn)
        pprint(x)

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