tv_grab_it - Grab TV listings for Italy.

tv_grab_it --help

tv_grab_it [--config-file FILE] --configure

tv_grab_it [--config-file FILE] [--output FILE] [--days N] [--offset N] [--quiet] [--slow] [--verbose] [--errors-in-xml] [--backend SITE1[,SITE2[,SITE3]]]

Output TV listings for several channels available in Italy. The grabber relies on parsing HTML so it might stop working at any time. The data comes from different backends. This is to minimize blackouts in case of site changes but also to extend the number of channels. If the grabber can't find the data with the first backend it will try the second one, and so on. You can specify your order of preference using the --backend option.

Currently configured backends are (in default order):

wfactory - grabs data from www.wfactory.net

skytv - grabs data from www.skytv.it

First run tv_grab_it --configure to choose which channels you want to download. Then running tv_grab_it with no arguments will output listings in XML format to standard output.

--configure Prompt for which channels, and writes the configuration file.

--config-file FILE Set the name of the configuration file, the default is ~/.xmltv/tv_grab_it.conf. This is the file written by --configure and read when grabbing.

--gui OPTION Use this option to enable a graphical interface to be used. OPTION may be 'Tk', or left blank for the best available choice. Additional allowed values of OPTION are 'Term' for normal terminal output (default) and 'TermNoProgressBar' to disable the use of XMLTV::ProgressBar.

--output FILE write to FILE rather than standard output.

--days N grab N days. The default is 7.

--offset N start N days in the future. The default is to start from today.

--quiet suppress the progress messages normally written to standard error.

--slow downloads more details (descriptions, actors...). This means downloading a new file for each programme, so it's off by default to save time.

--verbose prints out verbose information useful for debugging.

--errors-in-xml outputs warnings as programmes in the xml file, so that you can see errors in your favorite frontend in addition to the default STDERR.

--backend set the backend (or backends) to use. See the examples.

If you use --quiet you should also use --errors-in-xml or you won't be warned about errors. Note also that, as opposed to previous versions, this grabber doesn't die if it cannot find any data, but returns an empty (or optionally containing just warnings) xml file instead.

The mytv backend is currently disabled (site does not provide data anymore).

The backends' data quality differs a lot. For example, mytv was very basic, yet complete and uses the least amount of bandwith. Skytv has a lot of channels, but unless you use it with the --slow option the data is not very good (and in this case i would be VERY slow). wfactory is a good overall site if you don't need the whole sky package.

tv_grab_it --backend mytv --configure

configures tv_grab_it using only the backend mytv

tv_grab_it --backend skytv,wfactory --days 1

grabs one day of data overiding the default order (could also be --backend skytv --backend wfactory)

tv_grab_it --cache --slow --days 3

grabs the full data for the next three days using the default backend order and using a disk cache.

xmltv(5).

Davide Chiarini, pinwiz@inwind.it