SimpleScrobbler

Scrobble tracks to Last.fm without wanting to gnaw your own arm off.

Because, probably, all you want to do is just scrobble some tracks. I couldn't find any Ruby libraries/gems that actually worked, so I took some code from James Darling and Chris Mear's Captor hack and tidied it up into a self-contained package.

Authorise.

require "simple_scrobbler"
ss = SimpleScrobbler.new(api_key, secret, user)
ss.fetch_session_key do |url|
  puts "Go and visit #{url}"
  gets
end

Tell Last.fm what you're listening to.

This is used for realtime display of a user's currently playing track, and does not affect a user's musical profile.

ss.now_playing("Sex Pistols", "Anarchy in the UK")

Scrobble it!

ss.submit("Sex Pistols", "Anarchy in the UK", :length => 211)

Store the session_key for next time.

session_key = ss.session_key

And use it:

ss = SimpleScrobbler.new(api_key, secret, user, session_key)

You can pass in other information to submit and now_playing:

• :time (for submit only): Time at which the track started playing. Defaults to now
• :length: Length of the track in seconds (required for submit if the source is P, the default)
• :album: Album title
• :track_number: Track number
• :mb_trackid: MusicBrainz Track ID

If you're listening to a radio station, you'll want to set the source:

ss.source = "R" # Non-personalised broadcast (e.g. Shoutcast, BBC Radio 1).

This will also free you from needing to specify the track length on submit.