# Apple App Playlist Naming Conventions

Playlists in iTunes, Music and TV use names which are not case sensitive and unfortunately can be duplicated. Playlists can be stored in playlist folders which can be nested.

Yate allows you to access playlists as if there was no folder structure (flat) or by using the containing folder names (qualified). Yate uses the : character to separate playlist names from folder names. The following conventions are used wherever playlist names can be specified:

playlist name
  As playlist name does not contain a : it is treated as a flat reference. It will match the first occurrence of any playlist with the specified name.
:playlist name
  This is a special case and is the only time a playlist name can start with a :. This will match the first occurence of a playlist with the specified name that is not in a folder.
folder:playlist name
  This sequence is qualified. It implies a playlist named playlist name in a playlist folder name folder. Note that all qualified names start in the root. This means that folder cannot itself be inside a playlist folder.
folder2:folder1:playlist name
  This sequence is qualified. It implies a playlist named playlist name in a playlist folder name folder1 which is inside a playlist folder name folder2. This type of sequence can be extended to any number of specified folders. The leftmost folder is always at the root.

Certain statements can optionally return qualified playlist names. Qualified playlist names always contain at least one :

Warning

The above qualification methodology is not foolproof. It can handle playlist names containing colons when they are not in folders but it does not handle the playlist names containing colons inside folders.

If you have a folder named Favs containing a playlist named Fav:1, the qualified name will be Fav:Fav:1 which will not be interpreted correctly.

It is better to avoid the use of colons entirely in playlist names. It's also preferred to avoid the use of duplicate playlist names, even if the application allows them.