Python parsing iTunes XML/COM

[william tanksley]

I'm trying to convert the URLs contained in iTunes' XML file into a
form comparable with the filenames returned by iTunes' COM interface.

I'm writing a podcast sorter in Python; I'm using iTunes under Windows
right now. iTunes' COM provides most of my data input and all of my
mp3/aac editing capabilities; the one thing I can't access through COM
is the Release Date, which is my primary sorting field. So I read
everything in through COM, then read all the release dates from the
iTunes XML file, then try to join the two together... But so far I
have zero success.

Is there _any_ way to match up tracks between iTunes COM and iTunes
XML? I've spent far too much effort on this. I'm not stuck on using
filenames, if that's a bad idea... But I haven't found anything else
that works, and filenames seem like an obvious solution.

-Wm