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I am having trouble replicating the exact output of the specific --flat-playlist -j or --flat-playlist -J arguments provided to the youtube-dl cli, but using the direct python call instead.

Maybe i can't flush out the exact options i need to present or maybe the wrong function / method altogether?

I like this command because it is speedy and gives me only the YouTube ID's, without deep diving each and every video (As a simple benchmark, I can complete 4000 in about 30 seconds, vs. 4000 in 70 minutes via the regular info-only extraction).

CLI version, note that the cli somehow iterates, whereas the direct call method doesn't...

[root@tjds temp]# /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl --flat-playlist -J https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw 
"extractor": "youtube:playlist", "_type": "playlist", "uploader": "Patrick Best", "entries": ["url": "IaNEfhPmhPM", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "IaNEfhPmhPM", "title": "Rona in Aurora - the death of a big box", "url": "JN-2vTf8-WM", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "JN-2vTf8-WM", "title": "RealWorldNumbers - How to Test a Raspberry Pi Powered by Alkaline AA Batteries - After Poweroff", "url": "NmQmM36ja3o", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "NmQmM36ja3o", "title": "RealWorldNumbers - How to Test a Raspberry Pi Powered by Alkaline AA Batteries - During the Test", "url": "MsrgW1Rdlso", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "MsrgW1Rdlso", "title": "Raspberry Pi powered by AA batteries direct"], "id": "UU6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw", "title": "Uploads from Patrick Best", "extractor_key": "YoutubePlaylist", "uploader_id": "patrickscottbest", "uploader_url": "https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickscottbest", "webpage_url": "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw", "webpage_url_basename": "playlist"



[root@tjds temp]# /usr/local/bin/youtube-dl --flat-playlist -j https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw 
"url": "IaNEfhPmhPM", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "IaNEfhPmhPM", "title": "Rona in Aurora - the death of a big box"
"url": "JN-2vTf8-WM", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "JN-2vTf8-WM", "title": "RealWorldNumbers - How to Test a Raspberry Pi Powered by Alkaline AA Batteries - After Poweroff"
"url": "NmQmM36ja3o", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "NmQmM36ja3o", "title": "RealWorldNumbers - How to Test a Raspberry Pi Powered by Alkaline AA Batteries - During the Test"
"url": "MsrgW1Rdlso", "_type": "url", "ie_key": "Youtube", "id": "MsrgW1Rdlso", "title": "Raspberry Pi powered by AA batteries direct"

Here's what my python script is:

 import youtube_dl
 ydl_opts = 
 'extract_flat': True, ## --flat-playlist according to options.py
 'dumpjson': True, ## lower -j
 #'dump_single_json': True, ## UPPER -J
 
 with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
 object = ydl.extract_info(providedURL, download=False)
 print (object)
 print len(object)

and the result seems to only present the channel info without iterating:

[youtube:channel] UC6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw: Downloading channel page
'_type': 'url', 'url': 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw', 'ie_key': 'YoutubePlaylist', 'extractor': 'youtube:channel', 'webpage_url': 'https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw', 'webpage_url_basename': 'UC6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw', 'extractor_key': 'YoutubeChannel'

7

Can anyone please steer me in the right direction or tell me what the best way is to accomplish that quick task? Is there a template component i need to address? Do I need to treat the response before it's ready for display?

>> print (youtube_dl.version.unicode_literals)
_Feature((2, 6, 0, 'alpha', 2), (3, 0, 0, 'alpha', 0), 131072)

python --version
Python 3.6.5

Update,

As suggested, using the returned value of "url" seems to be a good enough workaround to continue my work. I still don't know why i don't see the same results that I would when using the CLI though... there seems to be a different logic there that automatically cycles through a channel's list, without having to run the command a second time.

>>> with youtube_dl.YoutubeDL(ydl_opts) as ydl:
... object = ydl.extract_info(providedURL, download=False)
... print (len(object))
... object2 = ydl.extract_info(object['url'], download=False)
... print (len(object2))
... print (object2)
... 
[youtube:channel] UC6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw: Downloading channel page
7 


[download] Downloading playlist: Uploads from Patrick Best
[youtube:playlist] playlist Uploads from Patrick Best: Downloading 4 videos
[download] Downloading video 1 of 4
[download] Downloading video 2 of 4
[download] Downloading video 3 of 4
[download] Downloading video 4 of 4
[download] Finished downloading playlist: Uploads from Patrick Best
11
'_type': 'playlist', 'entries': ['_type': 'url', 'url': 'IaNEfhPmhPM', 'ie_key': 'Youtube', 'id': 'IaNEfhPmhPM', 'title': 'Rona in Aurora - the death of a big box', '_type': 'url', 'url': 'JN-2vTf8-WM', 'ie_key': 'Youtube', 'id': 'JN-2vTf8-WM', 'title': 'RealWorldNumbers - How to Test a Raspberry Pi Powered by Alkaline AA Batteries - After Poweroff', '_type': 'url', 'url': 'NmQmM36ja3o', 'ie_key': 'Youtube', 'id': 'NmQmM36ja3o', 'title': 'RealWorldNumbers - How to Test a Raspberry Pi Powered by Alkaline AA Batteries - During the Test', '_type': 'url', 'url': 'MsrgW1Rdlso', 'ie_key': 'Youtube', 'id': 'MsrgW1Rdlso', 'title': 'Raspberry Pi powered by AA batteries direct'], 'id': 'UU6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw', 'title': 'Uploads from Patrick Best', 'uploader': 'Patrick Best', 'uploader_id': 'patrickscottbest', 'uploader_url': 'https://www.youtube.com/user/patrickscottbest', 'extractor': 'youtube:playlist', 'webpage_url': 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw', 'webpage_url_basename': 'playlist', 'extractor_key': 'YoutubePlaylist'
>>> 

I believe if you are referring to the playlist then you should pass your URL as such:

url = 'https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=UU6RNSPFcqY4BblL2Jg9SUtw'

Then you should be able to print object and iterate through each dict, something like:

object = ydl.extract_info(url, download=False)
for jsn in object.get('entries'):
 print jsn