Dim s As String

If String.IsNullOrEmpty(s) Then
  Console.WriteLine("String is null or empty.")
Else
  Console.WriteLine(String.Format("String = {0}", s))
EndIf

This isn’t exactly an earth shattering discovery, but it’s useful nonetheless.

• Databases
• Form fields
• Session variables
• Query string
• Cookies

Using the library is very simple. Just add a reference to the dll to your project, and you’re ready to go. Here’s a quick and dirty code example encoding a value from the query string:

string Name = AntiXss.HtmlEncode(Request.QueryString["Name"]);

A good rule to live by is “When in doubt. Encode it.” Just don’t encode it twice.

You can download the library from Microsoft here.

I used a Dictionary object to store the tracks I checked with the key being the track name. If a matching name is found, then I dig a little deeper to verify that a duplicate has actually been found, then I keep the one with a higher bitrate.

Download the VS2008 C# Express project here.

Here’s a code sample:

//create a reference to iTunes 
iTunesAppClass iTunes = new iTunesAppClass();

//get a reference to the collection of all tracks
IITTrackCollection tracks = iTunes.LibraryPlaylist.Tracks;

int trackCount = tracks.Count;
Dictionary<string, IITTrack> trackCollection = new Dictionary<string, IITTrack>();
ArrayList tracksToRemove = new ArrayList();

for (int i = trackCount; i > 0; i–)
{
        if (tracks[i].Kind == ITTrackKind.ITTrackKindFile)
        {        
             string trackKey = tracks[i].Name + tracks[i].Artist + tracks[i].Album;

            if (!trackCollection.ContainsKey(trackKey))
            {
               trackCollection.Add(trackKey, tracks[i]);
            }
            else
            {
                if (trackCollection[trackKey].Album != tracks[i].Album ||
                     trackCollection[trackKey].Artist != tracks[i].Artist)
                {
                    trackCollection.Add(trackKey, tracks[i]);
                 }
                 else if (trackCollection[trackKey].BitRate > tracks[i].BitRate)
                 {
                      tracksToRemove.Add(tracks[i]);
                  }
                  else
                  {
                      tracksToRemove.Add(tracks[i]);
                   }                           
            }
     }     
}                          

//now remove all duplicates
for (int i = 0; i < tracksToRemove.Count; i++)
{
     tracksToRemove[i].Delete();
}

The code is pretty straightforward. Get a reference to iTunes, check the file location of each track in the library and delete the tracks whose files don’t exist.
  

//create a reference to iTunes

iTunesAppClass iTunes = new iTunesAppClass();

//get a reference to the collection of all tracks

IITTrackCollection tracks = iTunes.LibraryPlaylist.Tracks;

for (int i = trackCount; i > 0; i–)

{

      IITTrack track = tracks[i];

      if (track.Kind == ITTrackKind.ITTrackKindFile)

      {

            IITFileOrCDTrack fileTrack = (IITFileOrCDTrack)track;          

            //if the file doesn’t exist, we’ll delete it from iTunes           

           if (fileTrack.Location == String.Empty || !System.IO.File.Exists(fileTrack.Location))            

          {

                  fileTrack.Delete();

            }

      }

}

You can download the project here (Download Project). I put it into a WinForm, used a worker thread to take care of the iTunes work because it can take some time to check a 10K song library, and output the dead tracks removed to a list box.

I think in part 2 I’ll add the ability to find duplicate songs and remove the copy with the lower bitrate. I know for sure that I’ve got quite a few of them. Any other ideas for what can be done with the iTunes SDK to clean up your music library or to just make life simpler?

Here’s what I used for this project:

FYI. I found about 175 dead tracks out of over 7300 in my library.