CUE2TOC(1) General Commands Manual CUE2TOC(1)

cue2toc - convert CUE to TOC format

cue2toc [-dhqv] [-o tocfile] [cuefile]

Cue2toc converts cuefile from CUE to TOC format and writes the result to tocfile. If either cuefile or tocfile is omitted or a single dash "-" cue2toc reads from standard input and writes to standard ouput respectively.

CUE files are text files describing the layout of a CD-Rom and typically carry the extension ".cue".

Cdrdao is a CD-burning application which has its own native TOC format to describe the disc layout. Although cdrdao has direct support for reading CUE files, it is currently limited to data tracks only. So cue2toc's main usefulness lies in converting CUE files containing audio tracks.

CUE files for audio discs often come with data files in compressed audio formats like MP3 or Ogg Vorbis. To burn such a disc with cdrdao these files must be converted to WAVE or raw format. Cue2toc can do this automatically if configured properly (see section CONFIGURATION below for more information).

Cue2toc normally displays warning messages for unsupported commands and constructs as well as for each data file converted. The -q option disables these messages.

print debugging information

print a short help message

write result to tocfile instead of standard ouput

quiet mode; do not print warnings

display version information

What follows is a description of the CUE format expected by cue2toc. For information about the TOC format please consult the cdrdao(1) manual page.

CUE files consist of commands and their arguments which must be separated from each other by any number of whitespace characters. Space, horizontal tabulator, newline and carriage return are recognized as whitespace characters except inside strings surrounded by double quotes, where they are part of the string. Commands are not case sensitive. CD-Text data can be at most 80 characters per item.

Timecode values are accepted in the forms "X:X:X", "X:X" and "X" where each "X" must consist of at most two digits and may be zero padded to the left. They are interpreted as "M:S:F", "S:F" and "F" respectively where "M" means "minutes" and must be in the range 0 <= M <= 99, "S" means "seconds" and must be in the range 0 <= S <= 59, and "F" means "frames" and must be in the range 0 <= F <= 74.

CUE files are logically divided into a global section and one to 99 track sections. Inside these sections the following commands are allowed:

REM anything_to_newline
CATALOG string
CDTEXTFILE string
TITLE string
PERFORMER string
SONGWRITER string
FILE string BINARY|MOTOROLA|AIFF|WAVE|MP3

Optional. Introduces a comment. Anything from there on up to and including the next newline character is ignored. Comments can appear anywhere in the file but not between a command and its arguments.

Optional. The Media Catalog Number of the disc. Must be exactly 13 characters.

Optional. Specifies an external file containing CD-Text data. Ignored.

Optional. The CD-Text title of the disc.

Optional. The CD-Text performer of the disc.

Optional. The CD-Text songwriter of the disc.

Required. The name and type of the file to be used for all following tracks. The string contains the name of the file followed by one of BINARY, MOTOROLA, AIFF, WAVE or MP3. As far as cue2toc is concerned the type of the file is effectively ignored. Nonetheless MOTOROLA, AIFF and MP3 cause printing of a warning message since these file types can not be used directly with cdrdao.

The first appearance of a TRACK command causes leaving of the global section and entering the track section.

TRACK number mode
REM anything_to_newline
FLAGS [DCP] [4CH] [PRE] [SCMS]
ISRC string
TITLE string
PERFORMER string
SONGWRITER string
PREGAP timecode
INDEX number timecode
POSTGAP timecode
FILE string BINARY|MOTOROLA|AIFF|WAVE|MP3

Required. Starts a new track definition. The number is ignored. The mode must be one of AUDIO, MODE1/2048, MODE1/2352, MODE2/2336 or MODE2/2352.

Optional. Defines the flags for this track. Must be followed by one or more of the following commands: DCP (digital copy permitted), 4CH (four channel audio), PRE (pre-emphasis enabled) and SCMS (serial copy management system). SCMS is ignored because there is no corresponding option in the TOC format.

Optional. The International Standard Recording Code for this track. Must be exactly 12 characters long.

Optional. The CD-Text title of this track.

Optional. The CD-Text performer of this track.

Optional. The CD-Text songwriter of this track.

Optional. The length of the track pregap to be filled with zero data. Mutually exclusive with INDEX 0.

Optional. The length of the track postgap to be filled with zero data.

Optional. The number must be in the range 0 <= number <= 99. Index number 1 specifies the start of the track. Index number 0 is the start of the track pregap filled with data from the file, i.e. the difference between index 0 and index 1 is the length of the pregap. Index 0 is mutually exclusive with PREGAP. Index numbers greater than 1 specify subindexes for this track and must be sequential.

Optional in track section. The syntax is the same as described above and if it appears inside a track specification it takes effect on the next TRACK command.

Cue2toc can be configured by specifying options in the file ~/.cue2tocrc. The syntax of this file and allowed configuration options follow.

Comments are introduced by the hash character '#' and extend to the end of the line. Configuration options take the form

OPTION = value

The value must be quoted if it contains whitespace characters. To include a double quote character in a quoted string, precede it with a backslash. Option values can either be of boolean type or string type. For boolean types any one of "yes", "y", "true" or "1" means true and anything else means false. The "default value" in the descriptions of the individual options below is the value assumed by cue2toc in the absence of the option from the configuration file.

This option takes three string arguments and specifies a converter for files with the extension ext_from. They are converted by the given command and the extension is replaced with ext_to in the TOC file. When the command is run the environment will contain the two variables C2T_FROM and C2T_TO which contain the original and new file name respectively. For example 

CONVERTER = .mp3 .wav
	"lame --decode \"$C2T_FROM\" \"$C2T_TO\""

will convert all MP3 files to WAVE format using lame. It is a good idea to quote the varibles $C2T_FROM and $C2T_TO because they could contain whitespace or other funny characters with a special meaning to the shell.

This option can be specified multiple times and each file is checked against the list of converters to see if it matches any of them. If multiple converters match a given file only the first match is used.

If a file with the name that results from replacing ext_from with ext_to already exists, the conversion command will not be executed.

This option has no default value.

This option enables or disables the conversion of data files as described above for the CONVERTER option. If this option is false, no conversion will take place. The default value is "yes".

If this option is true it has the same effect as if cue2toc was invoked with the -q command line option. The default value is "no".

This option enables or disables the writing of CD-Text data to the TOC file if it is present in the CUE file. The default value is "yes".

The command CDTEXTFILE and the flag SCMS have no equivalent in the TOC format and are ignored.

CUE files containing data tracks which specify a starting time greater than zero cannot be converted by cue2toc because the TOC format does not provide a way to specify a starting time at all for data tracks. However if the CUE file does not contain any audio tracks you can try to use the CUE file directly with cdrdao.

~/.cue2tocrc
The configuration file. The format of this file is described in the section CONFIGURATION above.

cdrdao(1), lame(1)

Since cue2toc's definition of the CUE format is entirely based on a number of different CUE files the author came across there is a very high probability that it will not work correctly with all the other CUE files you might encounter. If this is the case for you please send the problematic CUE file along with the version number of cue2toc to <dermatsch@gmx.de>.

Matthias Czapla <dermatsch@gmx.de>