Reply To: itunes xml file processing

#9960
js
Participant

@rpedde wrote:

A regular scan just checks for changed files. If it finds one, it scans it and wipes out the existing database entry (if any) with a new entry. Any files that haven’t changed, it doesn’t touch metadata for.

How does it decide if a file has changed? Does a changed mtime and/or atime count as a “change”? What about permission or ownership change?

When it’s started, it does a regular scan unless the db schema was updated and it calls for a full scan

So if the schema changes, I’d need to dump the ratings from the database before upgrading, and then re-update the database after re-building it?

I’d like to delete most of the music from my nearly-full ibook drive, and leave firefly as my canonical music library, using iTunes as a mere staging area. Just want to make sure I’m not going to cause myself to lose any ratings in the future! (Ratings are the primary way I “filter” for listening, so it’s very important to me that I don’t clobber them somehow!)

Thanks for clarifying how the scans work.

-Jason