Are you tired of listening to songs with incorrect or missing metadata? Fear not, for today we will be learning how to read and write ID3 tags to music files in C#, the programming language that is as melodious as it is efficient.

But before we dive into the coding part, let’s first understand what ID3 tags are. ID3 tags are metadata embedded within a music file that contains information such as the song title, artist name, album name, release year, and so on. They are what enable music players to display this information and provide a better user experience.

Now, let’s move on to the fun part – the coding! First, we need to install the “TagLib#” library, which is a popular open-source library for reading and writing ID3 tags. We can do this by using the NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio. Once we have the library installed, we can start writing our code.

Install from package manager:

PM> Install-Package TagLibSharp -Version 2.3.0

Let’s say we want to change the artist name of a song called “Never Gonna Give You Up” by Rick Astley. Here’s how we can do it:

using TagLib;

public void ChangeArtistName(string filePath, string newArtistName)
{
    // Load the music file
    var file = TagLib.File.Create(filePath);

    // Change the artist name
    file.Tag.Artists = new string[] { newArtistName };

    // Save the changes
    file.Save();
}

Easy, right? Now, let’s say we want to display the song title and artist name of all the music files in a folder. Here’s how we can do it:

using TagLib;

public void DisplaySongInfo(string folderPath)
{
    // Get all the music files in the folder
    var musicFiles = Directory.GetFiles(folderPath, "*.mp3");

    // Loop through each music file and display its information
    foreach (var musicFile in musicFiles)
    {
        // Load the music file
        var file = TagLib.File.Create(musicFile);

        // Get the song title and artist name
        var songTitle = file.Tag.Title;
        var artistName = string.Join(", ", file.Tag.Artists);

        // Display the information
        Console.WriteLine("Title: {0}, Artist: {1}", songTitle, artistName);
    }
}

Now you can impress your friends with your newfound knowledge of how to read and write ID3 tags in C#. And who knows, maybe you’ll even find a new calling as a DJ programmer. Happy coding!