[MPlayer-advusers] playlist parser as a demuxer?

[Reimar Döffinger]

Hi,
On Sat, Jan 01, 2005 at 03:29:29PM -0500, compn wrote:
> i know this has been talked about with automatic playlist parsing
> but what was the final verdict? is it possible to have the parser
> be called as a demuxer (always the last demuxer) and only for
> files under 10k filesize (or if on streaming servers that dont
> report size, for asx, pls, ram, smi, smil)?
> 
> e.g. -playlist becomes -demuxer 99 ?

I am totally against it, for multiple reason. A playlist is something
very different than a media file and forcably handling it like one by
moving a demuxer will most probably become a bug.
Also there is a security aspect. Playlist can contain any filename
located anywhere, they should not be executed "just like that" without
the user knowing about it.
One thing is e.g. that it could tell mplayer to read /dev/random - this
could cause some problems with certain programs (yes, bad example I
know).
Also MPlayer has no access to network settings that are e.g. in the
browser - like maybe a list of hosts to block because they throw around
with ads.
The only place where some kind of "automatic" playlist parsing is
important is in browser plugins. And I really think it should be them
who should parse it - they have access to browser settings, thus
should be able to do wiser decisions than MPlayer and often the
playlist formats are (similar to) things like xml which the browser
probably supports already anyway.

Greetings,
Reimar Döffinger