Mjb: moved content out of the LAME article, which is too cluttered

2014-09-10T19:15:40Z

moved content out of the LAME article, which is too cluttered

New page

The 9-character [[LAME]] short version string, as written in the [[MP3#VBRI, XING, and LAME headers|LAME tag]], has the following format:
:"<code>LAME</code>" + major version + "<code>.</code>" + minor version + flag

When the minor version is > 99, as is expected to happen when LAME 3.100 is released, the "<code>.</code>" will be omitted:
:"<code>LAME</code>" + major version + minor version + flag

If the version string is ever is less than 9 bytes, it is null-padded when written to the LAME tag.

The flag is normally one of the following:
* "<code>a</code>" for alpha versions
* "<code>b</code>" for beta versions
* "<code>r</code>" for release versions with patch version > 0, starting with 3.96.1
* "<code> </code>" (space) for all other release versions with minor version < 100
* "" (empty string) for release versions with patch version = 0 and minor version > 99

For LAME 3.99.1, the format was changed such that release versions with a patch version > 0 would be identified with the following format:
:"<code>L</code>" + major version + "<code>.</code>" + minor version + flag + patch version

However, the new code contained a minor error which resulted in the patch version being omitted, and the change of "<code>LAME</code>" to "<code>L</code>" proved to be problematic for hardware and software players which failed to recognize the LAME tags as such, adversely affecting [[gapless]] playback and encoder identification, so the new scheme was abandoned for 3.99.2 and up.

Examples:
* 3.98 = 3.98.0 = "<code>LAME3.98</code>" followed by a space character (byte 0x20)
* 3.98.1 through 3.98.4 = "<code>LAME3.98r</code>"
* 3.99 alpha versions = "<code>LAME3.99a</code>"
* 3.99 beta versions = "<code>LAME3.99b</code>"
* 3.99 = 3.99.0 = "<code>LAME3.99</code>" followed by a space character
* 3.99.1 = "<code>L3.99r</code>" followed by three null characters (byte 0x00)
* 3.99.2 through 3.99.''n'' = "<code>LAME3.99r</code>"
* 3.100 alpha versions = "<code>LAME3100a</code>"

Related discussion thread:
* [http://www.hydrogenaudio.org/forums/index.php?showtopic=91372&view=findpost&p=775060 LAME 3.99 is out] (reports and discussion from 9 through 18 Nov 2011).

Related code:
* [http://lame.cvs.sourceforge.net/viewvc/lame/lame/libmp3lame/version.c?view=log version.c in CVS] (revisions 1.31 through 1.34)

LAME version string - Revision history

Mjb: moved content out of the LAME article, which is too cluttered