VLC Media Player LUA Extension fails detecting whether the media file actually exists or not in Windows

Question

As I stated in Q-title, I am trying to utilize an existing VLC extension developed in LUA programming language.

The Lua extension can be referred from here, when I correctly place this extension in %ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\extensions path and then open any video/audio file and run it and then when I select View > Remove current file from playlist and disk option, it closes the currently playing media file & throws this error: lua info: [vlc-delete] error: File does not exist.

Not sure but I suspect this is due to Windows quotes issue when FileName and/or FilePath contains spaces in them. And also from the error, it seems that io.popen("if exist " .. file .. " (echo 1)") : read "*l" == "1" isn't reliable for correctly detecting whether file actually exists or not.

I am relatively new to Lua programming, so can anyone assist about any better methods for checking whether file exists or not that works in latest VLC versions like 3.x+(cause I am using VLC 3.0.17.4 64Bit in Windows 10/11 64Bit), or just assist fix this mentioned issue ?

Note that when the script calls fileExists method, it does takes care of quotes properly: if not fileExists("\"" .. file .. "\"") then return nil, "File does not exist" end

Answer 1

After hours of troubleshooting, I was able to fix the issue, which was due to the way the quoted(space-containing) file path was passed to another function and the Lua library method of os.remove not working on the passed parameter.

So I just had an idea, I am mainly using Windows OS only, then why not convert the script to rely on Windows OS core(batch/cmd) functions only and do the safe checking of whether file exists and then delete with those core Windows functions too.

And so I just did that and got the plugin to actually check whether the file exists and delete the file, if it does then delete it. Here's the working code:

-- Copy this file to %ProgramFiles%\VideoLAN\VLC\lua\extensions\ and restart VLC Media player.
function descriptor()
    return {
        title = "VLC Delete Media File(Windows only)";
        version = "1.0";
        author = "Vicky Dev";
        shortdesc = "&Remove current file from playlist and disk";
        description = [[
<h1>VLC Delete Media File(Windows only)</h1>"
When you're playing a file, use this to easily
delete the current file from your <b>playlist</b> and <b>disk</b> with one click.<br>
Disclaimer: The author is not responsible for damage caused by this extension.
        ]];
    }
end

function sleep(seconds)
    local t0 = os.clock()
    local tOriginal = t0
    while os.clock() - t0 <= seconds and os.clock() >= tOriginal do end
end

function removeItem()
    local id = vlc.playlist.current()
    vlc.playlist.delete(id)
    vlc.playlist.gotoitem(id + 1)
    vlc.deactivate()
end

function activate()
    local item = vlc.input.item()
    local uri = item:uri()
    uri = string.gsub(uri, "^file:///", "")
    uri = vlc.strings.decode_uri(uri)
    path = string.gsub(uri, "/", "\\")
    vlc.msg.info("[VLC Delete Media File(Windows only)] removing: "..uri.." : "..path)
    removeItem()
    retval, err = os.execute("if exist ".."\""..path.."\"".." @(call )")
    if (type(retval) == 'number' and retval == 0) then
        os.execute("del /f /a /q ".."\""..path.."\"")
    end
end

function click_ok()
    d:delete()
    vlc.deactivate()
end

function deactivate()
    vlc.deactivate()
end

function close()
    deactivate()
end

function meta_changed()
end

Hope this helps anyone who wants this cool feature of deleting the media files from player itself, instead of going to the location and doing it.