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== Time ==

Starting with [[VLC media player]] 0.9.0, the following options specify a character formatted time string, rather than just a plain character string:
* --marq-marquee
* --snapshot-path
* --snapshot-prefix
* --sout-file-format
* --sout-livehttp-index

Time variables are those defined by the '''strftime''' C function. The following expansions are most common:
* %Y : year
* %m : month
* %d : day
* %H : hour
* %M : minute
* %S : second

For an extensive list have a look at [http://pubs.opengroup.org/onlinepubs/9699919799/functions/strftime.html] (or the strftime manual page on Unix systems).

==Input meta==

VLC-specific meta-data expansions are available for the following options:
* --input-title-format
* --snapshot-path (in version 2.2.0 and later)
* --snapshot-prefix (in version 2.2.0 and later)

The following expansion are performed:
* $a : artist
* $b : album
* $c : copyright
* $d : description
* $e : encoded by
* $f : total decoded frame count (since VLC started)
* $g : genre
* $l : language
* $n : track number
* $o : track total
* $p : now playing
* $r : rating
* $s : subtitles language
* $t : title
* $u : url
* $A : date
* $B : audio bitrate (in kb/s)
* $C : chapter (as in DVD chapter number)
* $D : duration
* $F : full name with path
* $I : title (as in DVD title number)
* $L : time left
* $N : name (media name as seen in the VLC playlist)
* $O : audio language
* $P : position (in %)
* $R : rate
* $S : audio sample rate (in kHz)
* $T : time code of the video
* $U : publisher
* $V : volume
* $Z : now playing (artist - title)
* $_ : new line
* $<any other char> : <any other char> (for example: $$ transforms to $)

You can insert a space between the $ sign and the character to tell it to not display anything if the meta data isn't available. For example: <code>$ T</code> instead will display "" while <code>$T</code> would display "--:--:--", if no time is available. If a time is available,  it would display something like "01_22_13" (for a snapshot from one hour, 22 minutes and 13 seconds in a video).

===Source code===
If you want to know how this works, check out {{VLCSourceFile|src/text/strings.c}} (search for <code>vlc_strfinput</code>)

The variable <var>b_empty_if_na</var> refers to the leading space feature: {{Commitdiff|3cc651e520ccb3106097e3f0167cc8c26f23e36c|l=Add option to format strings to prevent displaying dashes if the meta info was unavailable (ie: if time is unavailable, "$T" will display "--:--:--" while "$ T" won't display anything). This is of course completely untested :)}}

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