PLS is a computer file format for a multimedia

playlist A playlist is a list of video or audio files that can be played back on a media player either sequentially or in a shuffled order. In its most general form, an audio playlist is simply a list of songs, but sometimes a loop. The term has sev ...

. It is typically used by media players for

streaming media Streaming media is multimedia that is delivered and consumed in a continuous manner from a source, with little or no intermediate storage in network elements. ''Streaming'' refers to the delivery method of content, rather than the content i ...

over the Internet, but may also be used for playing local media. For online streaming, typically the .PLS file would be downloaded just once from the media source, —such as from an online radio station— for immediate or future use. While most computers and players automatically recognize .PLS format, the first time a PLS file is used on a computer, the media player's settings may need to be changed to recognize ( "associated" with) .PLS files. PLS was originally developed for use with the museArc audio player software by codeArts, and was later used by SHOUTcast and

Icecast Icecast is a streaming media project released as free software maintained by the Xiph.Org Foundation. It also refers specifically to the server program which is part of the project. Icecast was created in December 1998/January 1999 by Jack M ...

for

over the Internet. PLS is a more expressive playlist format than the basic M3U playlist, as it can store ( cache) information on the song title and length (this is supported in extended M3U only).

File format

The format is case-sensitive and essentially that of an INI file structured as follows Header * laylist: ''This tag indicates that it is a Playlist File'' Track Entry
''Assuming track entry #X'' *FileX : ''Variable defining location of media file/stream (like .m3u/.m3u8 playlists).'' *TitleX : ''Defines track title. (optional)'' *LengthX : ''Length in seconds of track. Value of -1 indicates indefinite (streaming). (optional)'' Footer *NumberOfEntries : ''This variable indicates the number of tracks and therefore equals the number used for the last track'' *Version : ''Playlist version. Currently only a value of 2 is valid.''

Examples

Example of a complete PLS file used for "streaming audio;" in this case, to connect to a particular online radio station and receive its audio stream: laylistFile1=http://stream2.streamq.net:8020/ Title1=Here enter name of the station NumberOfEntries=1 Alternative Example containing local paths: laylist File1=http://relay5.181.fm:8068 Length1=-1 File2=example2.mp3 Title2=Just some local audio that is 2mins long Length2=120 File3=F:\Music\whatever.m4a Title3=absolute path on Windows File4=%UserProfile%\Music\short.ogg Title4=example for an Environment variable Length4=5 NumberOfEntries=4 Version=2 ;Unix/BSD/Linux/OS X In

Unix-like A Unix-like (sometimes referred to as UN*X or *nix) operating system is one that behaves in a manner similar to a Unix system, although not necessarily conforming to or being certified to any version of the Single UNIX Specification. A Unix-li ...

operating systems absolute and relative file paths differ from Windows, because there are no drive letters,

Environment variable An environment variable is a dynamic-named value that can affect the way running processes will behave on a computer. They are part of the environment in which a process runs. For example, a running process can query the value of the TEMP env ...

s differ and (forward slashes) are used as directory separators instead of (backslashes). Therefore, playlists pointing to absolute paths or media files outside of the folder containing the playlist will only work for one type of operating system - either Windows or Unix-like.

URLs A Uniform Resource Locator (URL), colloquially termed as a web address, is a reference to a web resource that specifies its location on a computer network and a mechanism for retrieving it. A URL is a specific type of Uniform Resource Identifie ...

work the same for all types. To make the second example from above work the 3rd and 4th path need to be changed to something like: File3=/media/hdd/whatever.m4a File4=~/Music/short.ogg

Compatible media player software

iTunes,

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Yahoo! Music Jukebox Yahoo! Music Jukebox, formerly known as Yahoo! Music Engine, was a freeware music player released by Yahoo! in 2005 to compete with iTunes and Rhapsody in the digital music market. Developed side-by-side with MusicMatch Jukebox, another music p ...

, MediaMonkey,

Windows Media Player Windows Media Player (WMP) is the first media player and media library application that was developed by Microsoft for playing audio, video and viewing images on personal computers running the Microsoft Windows operating system, as well as ...

, AIMP,

Kodi KODI (1400 AM) is a radio station broadcasting a news/talk format. Licensed to Cody, Wyoming, United States, the station is currently owned by the Big Horn Radio Network, a division of Legend Communications of Wyoming, LLC, and features prog ...

, Rhythmbox,

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, and more than 30 others are able to interpret (open) PLS files. Media Player Classic with the

K-Lite The K-Lite Codec Pack is a collection of Audio codec, audio and video codecs for Microsoft Windows DirectShow that enables an operating system and its software to play various audio and video formats generally not supported by the operating syst ...

codec installed does work with PLS format but still requires the appropriate

MIME Multipurpose Internet Mail Extensions (MIME) is an Internet standard that extends the format of email messages to support text in character sets other than ASCII, as well as attachments of audio, video, images, and application programs. Messa ...

or file extension associations.

References

{{Unreferenced section, date=September 2015

External links

Unofficial PLS file specification
2001, winamp.com

2003
PLSv2 play list specification
2010/2012
Open PLS in WMP
Playlist file formats Digital audio

File format

Examples

Compatible media player software

See also

References

External links