M3U8

This is the most complete opensource library for parsing and generating of M3U8 playlists used in HTTP Live Streaming (Apple HLS) for internet video translations.

M3U8 is simple text format and parsing library for it must be simple too. It does not offer ways to play HLS or handle playlists over HTTP. So library features are:

• Support HLS specs up to version 5 of the protocol.
• Parsing and generation of master-playlists and media-playlists.
• Autodetect input streams as master or media playlists.
• Offer structures for keeping playlists metadata.
• Encryption keys support for use with DRM systems like Verimatrix etc.
• Support for non standard Google Widevine tags.

The library covered by BSD 3-clause license. See LICENSE for the full text. Versions 0.8 and below was covered by GPL v3. License was changed from the version 0.9 and upper.

See the list of the library authors at AUTHORS file.

Project status

I moved away from videostreaming years ago and directly not used this code in my projects now. Hence the project mostly abandoned. Anyway I interested in keeping the code as useful as possible. I'll keep the eye on the issues when I have the time. Time is the biggest issue 😐

1. Any patches are welcome especially bugfixes.
2. If you want to maintain the project open the issue or directly contact me.
3. If you have alternatives (including the forks of this project) that you prefer to maintain by self, drop a link for including to this readme.

Install

go get github.com/grafov/m3u8

or get releases from https://github.com/grafov/m3u8/releases

Documentation

Package online documentation (examples included) available at:

• https://pkg.go.dev/github.com/grafov/m3u8

Supported by the HLS protocol tags and their library support explained in M3U8 cheatsheet.

Examples

Parse playlist:

	f, err := os.Open("playlist.m3u8")
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	p, listType, err := m3u8.DecodeFrom(bufio.NewReader(f), true)
	if err != nil {
		panic(err)
	}
	switch listType {
	case m3u8.MEDIA:
		mediapl := p.(*m3u8.MediaPlaylist)
		fmt.Printf("%+v\n", mediapl)
	case m3u8.MASTER:
		masterpl := p.(*m3u8.MasterPlaylist)
		fmt.Printf("%+v\n", masterpl)
	}

Then you get filled with parsed data structures. For master playlists you get Master struct with slice consists of pointers to Variant structures (which represent playlists to each bitrate). For media playlist parser returns MediaPlaylist structure with slice of Segments. Each segment is of MediaSegment type. See structure.go or full documentation (link below).

You may use API methods to fill structures or create them manually to generate playlists. Example of media playlist generation:

	p, e := m3u8.NewMediaPlaylist(3, 10) // with window of size 3 and capacity 10
	if e != nil {
		panic(fmt.Sprintf("Creating of media playlist failed: %s", e))
	}
	for i := 0; i < 5; i++ {
		e = p.Append(fmt.Sprintf("test%d.ts", i), 6.0, "")
		if e != nil {
			panic(fmt.Sprintf("Add segment #%d to a media playlist failed: %s", i, e))
		}
	}
	fmt.Println(p.Encode().String())

Custom Tags

M3U8 supports parsing and writing of custom tags. You must implement both the CustomTag and CustomDecoder interface for each custom tag that may be encountered in the playlist. Look at the template files in example/template/ for examples on parsing custom playlist and segment tags.

Library structure

Library has compact code and bundled in three files:

• structure.go — declares all structures related to playlists and their properties
• reader.go — playlist parser methods
• writer.go — playlist generator methods

Each file has own test suite placed in *_test.go accordingly.

Related links

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M3U
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HTTP_Live_Streaming
• https://gonze.com/playlists/playlist-format-survey.html

Library usage

This library was successfully used in streaming software developed for company where I worked several years ago. It was tested then in generating of VOD and Live streams and parsing of Widevine Live streams. Also the library used in opensource software so you may look at these apps for usage examples:

• HLS downloader
• Another HLS downloader
• HLS utils
• M3U8 reader

Project status

Code coverage: https://gocover.io/github.com/grafov/m3u8

Project maintainers

Thank to all people who contrubuted to the code and maintain it. Especially thank to the maintainers who involved in the project actively in the past and helped to keep code actual:

• Lei Gao @leikao
• Bradley Falzon @bradleyfalzon

New maitainers are welcome.

Alternatives

On the project start in 2013 there was no any other libs in Go for m3u8. Later the alternatives came. Some of them may be more fit current standards.

• https://github.com/hr8/rosso

Drop a link in issue if you know other projects.

FYI M3U8 parsing/generation in other languages

• https://github.com/globocom/m3u8 in Python
• https://github.com/zencoder/m3uzi in Ruby
• https://github.com/Jeanvf/M3U8Paser in Objective C
• https://github.com/tedconf/node-m3u8 in Javascript
• https://sourceforge.net/projects/m3u8parser/ in Java
• https://github.com/karlll/erlm3u8 in Erlang