Read the title from a DVD?

Question

I've noticed that each DVD image has a semi-unique uppercase name. Is there a standardized way for me to simply read this name as a non-root user in Linux? I'm on an Ubuntu 12.04 derivative running kernel 3.7. I'd like to simply get the name of any disk currently in the drive like so:

DVD_NAME="$( ./read-dvd-name.sh )"

It's bad practice to use all uppercase variable names for non-environment variables. — jordanm, Jan 18 '13 at 05:02
Thanks, but this doesn't answer my question :) Bad-practice is debatable. — Naftuli Kay, Jan 18 '13 at 06:20

Stéphane Chazelas · Accepted Answer · 2013-02-02T06:51:35.937

17

You could use blkid for that:

DVD_NAME=$(blkid -o value -s LABEL /dev/dvd)

(you need to have read permission to /dev/dvd for that).

Or:

DVD_NAME=$(udevadm info -n dvd -q property | sed -n 's/^ID_FS_LABEL=//p')

for which you don't need any special privilege (udev (running as root) queries the label name using blkid and updates a device database which you query with udevadm).

edited Feb 02 '13 at 06:51

answered Jan 22 '13 at 22:15

Stéphane Chazelas

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Do I need to be root to do that? – Naftuli Kay Feb 01 '13 at 23:57

xerostomus · Answer 2 · 2019-11-06T16:17:41.030

1

I am not sure whether this would help you:

isoinfo  -i C462_19-08-26_09-56.iso -d | sed -n 's/^Volume id: //p'
isoinfo  -i C462_19-08-26_09-56.iso -d | awk '/Volume id: / {print $3}'

My clumsy original solution:

dvdtitle=$(isoinfo  -i isofile.iso -d | grep "Volume id:" | awk '{print $3}')

edited Nov 06 '19 at 16:17

answered Oct 02 '15 at 16:36

xerostomus

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(1) The question title is “Read the title from a DVD?” and the last sentence in the question says, “I’d like to simply get the name of any disk currently in the drive …”, so you should probably start off by suggesting `isoinfo ` **`-i /dev/cdrom `** `-d …`, and then add, as a postscript, the fact that the command can be used to examine an ISO image in a file by specifying `… -i ` *`iso_image_filename `* `…`. … (Cont’d) – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' Oct 02 '15 at 18:56
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(Cont’d) … (2) `awk` is a powerful text processing tool; you hardly ever need to use it in conjunction with *another text processing tool* such as `grep`. Your pipeline, `grep "Volume id:" | awk '{print $3}'`, can be simplified to `awk '/Volume id: / {print $3}'`. (3) Volume IDs can be multiple words, and this `print $3` approach displays only the first one. There are ways of handling this in `awk`, but an easier approach is to pipe the output from `isoinfo` into `sed -n 's/Volume id: //p'`. (4) As a sanity check, it would be better to search for `/^Volume id: /`. – G-Man Says 'Reinstate Monica' Oct 02 '15 at 18:59
Dear G-Man, thank you for you valuable hints. :-) Sincerely X. – xerostomus Nov 06 '19 at 16:16

Read the title from a DVD?

2 Answers2