Can moe work with metadata-less music?

[jaimet]

I'm trying to use the example script on the documentation homepage to tag an album that has no metadata whatsoever, but I'm getting the following error:

$ ../tag . $myRecordingId
Traceback (most recent call last):
  File "/home/user/moetest/music/../tag", line 33, in <module>
    main()
  File "/home/user/moetest/music/../tag", line 24, in main
    album = Album.from_dir(pathlib.Path(args.path))
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/user/moetest/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/moe/library/album.py", line 396, in from_dir
    track = Track.from_file(file_path, album)
            ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
  File "/home/user/moetest/venv/lib/python3.11/site-packages/moe/library/track.py", line 432, in from_file
    raise ValueError(
ValueError: Track is missing required fields. [missing_reqd_fields=['title', 'track_num', 'album_artist', 'album_title', 'date']]

Could someone please confirm that moe requires the above tags ("fields") to be already present in the (source) files in order to be able import them?

[jtpavlock]

That's correct, Moe cannot import music without those required fields present.

Edit: As a workaround, you should be able to just set dummy values for the required fields when you first create the Track if you use the default Track constructor.

[jaimet]

Sadly for me, that means that moe is a no-go, and as far as I can tell, it's not mentioned anywhere in any of the documentation.
Would it be possible to add that info somewhere prominent?

Parenthetically, it's interesting that beets can perform this function. I think that it would be a great addition if, one day in the future, moe could also tag tracks from a known recording id despite having no pre-existing metadata.

[jtpavlock]

Thinking about this again, I believe the workaround would be quite simple. Instead of using the from_file constructor for tracks, you can use the default __init__ for a Track and manually set dummy values for the required fields initially before merging in the proper fields from the musicbrainz track.