epgsearchcats.conf(5)        EPGSearch Version 2.4.6       epgsearchcats.conf(5)

NAME
     epgsearchcats.conf – extended EPG information

DESCRIPTION
     Some  EPG  providers deliver supplemental EPG information, like the kind of
     event, the video and audio format, cast, etc. in the content summary.   Us‐
     ing  tools  like  tvmovie2vdr  or epg4vdr, EPG content like this can be im‐
     ported into the VDR.

     Such information allows, for instance, creating a search  for  finding  all
     tips of the day broadcasted in 16:9 format quite easily.  For this purpose,
     EPGSearch  scans  the summary of an event for lines starting with the names
     of categories, followed by ':' and a space, that have one  or  more  values
     set in the search timer. The search is case-sensitive for both the category
     name and its values.

     To use this kind of information in search timers, appropriate settings must
     have  been  made in the file epgsearchcats.conf in the EPGSearch configura‐
     tion directory.  Sample files for epgsearchcats.conf can be  found  in  the
     directory conf of EPGSearch. Quite often, copying the one that fits best as
     epgsearchcats.conf to the EPGSearch configuration directory and making some
     minor adjustments might be sufficient. Then just restart the VDR and open a
     search timer's edit menu for making use of the EPG categories.

     Since setting up a new epgsearchcats.conf is quite a lot of work, EPGSearch
     comes with the small tool createcats that does the biggest part of the job.
     It  should  have  been  installed to the directory of the VDR.  See create‐
     cats(1) for information about how to use it.

SYNTAX
     Lines within this file have the following format:

         ID|category name[,format]|name in menu|values|search mode

     A line's fields have the following meaning:

     1 – Unique identifier (ID)
         Integer with a positive value.

         Caution: Changing the identifier later on  will  require  updating  the
         search timers!

     2 – Category name
         String  with  the EPG category's name as delivered by the EPG provider,
         like 'Genre'.

         If an optional 'format' is supplied, the category value will be  inter‐
         preted  as integer and formatted as specified by the format string (see
         'man printf' for applicable format strings).

     3 – Name in menus
         String with the EPG category's name for display in EPGSearch menus.

     4 – Values
         String with an optional, comma-separated list of  values  for  the  EPG
         category.

     5 – Search mode
         Optional enumeration with the following values:

             Textual comparison:

             0 = the whole term must appear as substring
             1 = all single terms (delimited by one of ',;|~') must exist as
             substrings; this is the default search mode
             2 = at least one term (delimited by one of ',;|~') must exist as
             substring
             3 = exact match
             4 = regular expression

             Numerical comparison:

             10 = less
             11 = less or equal
             12 = greater
             13 = greater or equal
             14 = equal
             15 = not equal

EXAMPLE
       1|Category|Kind|Information,Children,Music,Series,Show,Movie,Sports|2
       2|Genre|Genre|Adventure,Action,Business,Science,Cartoon|2
       3|Format|Video format|16:9,4:3|2
       4|Audio|Audio format|Dolby Surround,Dolby,Stereo|2
       5|Year|Release year||2
       6|Cast|Cast||2
       7|Director|Director||2
       8|Presenter|Presenter||2
       9|Rating|Rating|Excellent,Great,Average,Acceptable,Poor|2
       10|Age|Age|6,12,16,18|2
       11|Country|Country||2
       12|Themes|Themes||4
       13|Season,%02i|Season||14
       14|Season,%02i|Season from||13
       15|Episode,%02i|Episode||14

     Identifiers  13 and 14 refer to the same EPG category, but provide distinct
     menu names for different search modes. As the evaluation  sequence  is  not
     guaranteed,  their  formats should be identical to avoid unexpected results
     when referencing the category's variable.

AUTHORS (man pages)
     Originally provided by Mike Constabel <epgsearch (at) constabel (dot) net>.

     Revised and adapted to recent plugin features by the current maintainers.

PROJECT SITE
     The plugin is maintained as GitHub project:

     <https://github.com/vdr-projects/vdr-plugin-epgsearch/>

REPORTING BUGS
     Issues can be reported, and features be suggested,  through  the  project's
     bug tracker:

     <https://github.com/vdr-projects/vdr-plugin-epgsearch/issues/>

COPYRIGHT and LICENSE
     Copyright (C) 2004-2010 Christian Wieninger

     Copyright © 2011-2025 TomJoad (VDR-Portal), et al.

     This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it un‐
     der  the  terms  of the GNU General Public License as published by the Free
     Software Foundation; either version 2 of the License, or (at  your  option)
     any later version.

     This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful, but WITHOUT
     ANY  WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of MERCHANTABILITY or FIT‐
     NESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.  See the GNU General Public License for more
     details.

     You should have received a copy of the GNU  General  Public  License  along
     with  this program; if not, write to the Free Software Foundation, Inc., 51
     Franklin Street, Fifth Floor, Boston, MA  02110-1301  USA  Or,  point  your
     browser to <https://www.gnu.org/licenses/old-licenses/gpl-2.0.html>

     The original author can be reached via cwieninger@gmx.de.

     Current  maintainers  can  be  reached  via  the project's GitHub site (see
     above).

     The MD5 code has been derived from the MD5 Message-Digest Algorithm of  RSA
     Data Security, Inc.

SEE ALSO
     epgsearch(1), createcats(1), epgsearchcats.conf(5)

perl v5.40.1                       2026-04-19              epgsearchcats.conf(5)
