XML Playlist Cache Prob, Possible Workaround?

[nigenet]

Hi,

I downloaded your excellent media player yesterday - it looks to be just what I'm looking for

However, I did have a problem with the XML playlist which was caching everytime. This was a particular problem as I was setting up the playlist at the same time as R'ing TFM so any changes I made weren't showing unless I cleared the browser cache.

After a little head scratching, I came up with a solution of sorts, which is to append a random string of characters to the playlist filename in the js as a query string, which seems to do the job.

Bizarrely, the first "random character string" javascript function I came across on google was also from this site although I changed the end of it to return the value instead of writing it to document.

Code is as follows;

// I placed this below the main comment block at the top of the js file, before the variables are set
function randomString() {
var chars = "0123456789ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXTZabcdefghiklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
var string_length = 8;
var randomstring = '';
for (var i=0; i<string_length; i++) {
var rnum = Math.floor(Math.random() * chars.length);
randomstring += chars.substring(rnum,rnum+1);
}
return randomstring;
}

... then ...

playlist = "myplaylist.xml?foo="+randomString(); // Random query string to stop XML caching

... I would appreciate any thoughts on this as a suitable method, or there may well be simpler methods that I haven't considered...

Note to other users - I have only tested this on my setup, and it has not been peer-reviewed yet. Edit js files at your own risk!

[Dave]

I downloaded your excellent media player yesterday - it looks to be just what I'm looking for

Excellent.

However, I did have a problem with the XML playlist which was caching everytime.

Yeah, I've noticed that as well. It doesn't usually bother me except when I'm working on something and I want to keep changing the playlist. I think your solution is a good one. I have used a similar solution before to prevent image caching and it works well. I can't see any reason for it not to work with the media player. Good thinking

Bizarrely, the first "random character string" javascript function I came across on google was also from this site

hehe, our domination of the Internet is almost complete. Soon there will be no need for other websites.

[hurry]

nigenet, it works for me here too. Thanks. Only thing now, it takes a little while to load the playlist but that has to be expected.

[Dale Churchill]

works on Safari and FireFox for Mac, too. Thanks!