It’s usage is very simple: it needs only the title and the artist of a song, and, optionally an username of a Last.fm account for adiotional information such as user’s playcount.

It also takes a string which represents the output format. An example format string could be:

A complete list of allowed variables could be found inside the documentation (perldoc).

Also check out the git repository.

#!/usr/bin/perl

# Fetch song's info from last.fm.
# 
# Copyright 2010 Alessandro Ghedini <al3xbio@gmail.com>
# --------------------------------------------------------------
# "THE BEER-WARE LICENSE" (Revision 42):
# Alessandro Ghedini wrote this file. As long as you retain this 
# notice you can do whatever you want with this stuff. If we 
# meet some day, and you think this stuff is worth it, you can 
# buy me a beer in return.
# --------------------------------------------------------------

use HTTP::Request::Common;
use LWP::UserAgent;
use XML::Simple;
use Encode::Escape;

use strict;

die("For info type 'perldoc $0'\n") unless $#ARGV > 0;

my (%format_tags, $format, $user, $api_key, $track, $artist);

$api_key = "b25b959554ed76058ac220b7b2e0a026";

for (my $i = 0; $i < $#ARGV + 1; $i++) {
    $format     = $ARGV[$i+1] if ($ARGV[$i] eq "-f");
    $user     = $ARGV[$i+1] if ($ARGV[$i] eq "-u");
    $api_key = $ARGV[$i+1] if ($ARGV[$i] eq "-k");
    $track     = $ARGV[$i+1] if ($ARGV[$i] eq "-t");
    $artist     = $ARGV[$i+1] if ($ARGV[$i] eq "-a");
    print "For info type 'perldoc $0'\n" if ($ARGV[$i] eq "-h");
}

my $api_root = "http://ws.audioscrobbler.com/2.0";
my $method = "track.getInfo";

my $ua = LWP::UserAgent -> new;

my $q_method     = "method=$method";
my $q_apikey     = "api_key=$api_key";
my $q_artist     = "artist=$artist";
my $q_track    = "track=$track";
my $q_user    = "username=$user";

my $api_url = "$api_root/?$q_method&$q_apikey&$q_artist&$q_track&$q_us
+er";

my $response = $ua -> request(GET $api_url) -> as_string;

my $body = (split /\n\n/, $response)[1];

my $xml_handler = XMLin($body);

if ($xml_handler -> {error} -> {code}) {
    print "ERROR: ".$xml_handler -> {error} -> {content}."\n";
    exit -1;
}

$format_tags{'track'}        = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {name};
$format_tags{'artist'}       = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {artist} -> 
+{name};
$format_tags{'album'}       = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {album} -> {t
+itle};

my $secs           = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {duration} / 1000;
$format_tags{'duration'}   = (gmtime $secs)[1].":".(gmtime $secs)[0];

$format_tags{'toptags'}    = "";

while (my $tag = each %{$xml_handler -> {track} -> {toptags} -> {tag}}
+) {
    $format_tags{'toptags'} .= "$tag ";
}

$format_tags{'playcount'}  = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {playcount};
$format_tags{'user_plays'} = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {userplaycount
+};
$format_tags{'user_loved'} = $xml_handler -> {track} -> {userloved};

while (my $tag = each %format_tags) {
    $format =~ s/{$tag}/$format_tags{$tag}/;
}

print decode 'ascii-escape', $format;

__END__

=head1 NAME

SongInfo.pl - Fetch song's info from last.fm

=head1 USAGE

SongInfo [OPTIONS]

=head1 OPTIONS

=over
        
=item -u    Specifies the username, it is used for user's playcount.

=item -t    Track's title.

=item -a    Track's artist.

=item -k    API Key (optional).

=item -f    Format used to print song's info (see below).

=back

=head1 FORMAT

The format variable is used to compose the output of SongInfo. The
variables allowed are:

=over
        
=item B<{track}>

Song's  title

=item B<{artist}>

Song's  artist

=item B<{album}>

Song's  album

=item B<{duration}>

Song's  lenght

=item B<{toptags}>

Song's most used tags (from Last.fm community).

=item B<{playcount}>

Song's total number of plays (from Last.fm community).

=item B<{user_plays}>

Song's number of plays by selected user (requires Last.fm account).

=item B<{user_loved}>

Return '1' if user loved the song, otherwise '0' (requires Last.fm acc
+ount).

=back

You can also use standard escape characters such as: \n (newline), \t 
+(tab),
\" (double quotes), \\ (backslash), etc...

=head1 API KEY

You can provide your own Last.fm API Key by setting the '-k' option,
otherwise the default key is used.

You can apply for an API Account on Last.fm:

http://www.last.fm/api/account

=cut
[download]