createcats(1)                EPGSearch Version 2.4.6               createcats(1)

NAME
     createcats – create epgsearchcats.conf from the VDR's EPG data

SYNOPSIS
     createcats [OPTIONS] /path_to/epg.data

DESCRIPTION
     This  tool  is  delivered with the EPGSearch plugin and should exist in the
     plugin's source directory after compilation. It  helps  creating  the  file
     epgsearchcats.conf  from the VDR's EPG data if the samples in the directory
     conf won't fit the needs.

     When called with:

         createcats /path_to/epg.data

     createcats takes the VDR's file epg.data as argument and scans it for suit‐
     able EPG information. Such information is a tuple of category  name  and  a
     corresponding  value,  like  'Genre:  Movie', located at the beginning of a
     line. Line breaks within epg.data are encoded by '|' characters.

     The output is a file epgsearchcats.conf that should be copied to  the  plu‐
     gin's  configuration directory. Before productive use, some customizing may
     be necessary, because not all findings in the file will be suitable as  ex‐
     tended EPG information.

OPTIONS
     The full set of arguments comprises:

     −h, −−help
         Print a concise help.

     −l N, −−maxlength=N
         The maximum length of a text to be accepted as a category value.

         If  the length of a value is greater than N, this value will not become
         part of the list of values.

     −m N, −−minappearance=N
         The minimum number of occurrences for a category be accepted.

         The tool counts how often a category is used in the current  EPG  data.
         If  this  is less than N, this category will not become part of the re‐
         sulting epgsearchcats.conf.

     −v N, −−maxvalues=N
         Values of a category are omitted if they exceed this number.

         If the number of distinct values for a category is greater than  N,  no
         list of values will be created for this category. As a consequence, the
         category  will  be represented by a string item that can be filled with
         arbitrary text. Otherwise, the category will be represented by  a  menu
         item for selecting values from the category's list.

     Hint:  Results  are  best  if the current EPG data is as large as possible.
     When downloading EPG data from an external EPG provider, the EPG should  be
     updated before running createcats.

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), epgsearch(4), epgsearchcats.conf(5)

perl v5.40.1                       2026-04-19                      createcats(1)
