How to download youtube playlist info using youtube-dl in a python program?

Checklist

• [x ] I’m asking a question
• [x ] I’ve looked through the README and FAQ for similar questions
• [x ] I’ve searched the bugtracker for similar questions including closed ones

Question

I’m trying to download info about all items in a youtube playlist. I’ve figured out the command to execute on the terminal but I’m unable to figure out its equivalent code when embedded in a python program.

Here’s the terminal command I use : youtube-dl --dump-single-json --flat-playlist PLFftu4DSZBSwrGiOlZXKHRSoKArsKSuz9 > /Users/abhimanyu/Desktop/list.json

Here’s how far I got in embedded python :

import youtube_dl

ydl = youtube_dl.YoutubeDL({'dump_single_json': 'True',
                            'extract_flat' : 'True'})

with ydl:
    result = ydl.download([
        'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLFftu4DSZBSwrGiOlZXKHRSoKArsKSuz9'])

print(len(result))

I also tried ydl.extract_info but that starts fetching info about each video individually which I don’t need.

[silverbacknet]

When downloading, 0 means success. Anything else means an error. (Classic C behavior.)

You were on the right track, result = ydl.extract_info(url, False) should give what you want. Default is to download everything, which you don’t want, thus download=False.

[dstftw]

Arguments are bools not strings.