M3U PATH MAP · READ ONLY

M3U Path Map Method and Limits

What is compared

The browser supplies relative filenames with one chosen-root prefix. The tool starts from the selected playlist's containing directory, processes forward-slash segments, ignores empty or dot segments and steps back for .. only while inside that root. It compares the resulting string with the supplied names. It does not visit a real target path, decode percent escapes, resolve symlinks or emulate a player.

UTF-8 decoding is required. Entries retain whitespace: a space is not silently trimmed. Empty lines and lines beginning with # are ignored; comments and blank lines still count toward the line limit. Invalid UTF-8, NUL-containing text, an HLS #EXT-X marker, excessive input or an ambiguous selected root rejects the whole read.

Evidence classes

• EXACT_MATCH: exact selected-name membership, not playback proof.
• MISSING: no exact or case-folded selected-name candidate.
• CASE_MISMATCH: one case-folded candidate. Filesystem case behavior remains unobserved.
• CASE_COLLISION: multiple case-folded candidates; none is selected.
• PATH_STYLE_MISMATCH: a unique slash-normalized hypothesis for a backslash entry, not a rewrite.
• PATH_STYLE_AMBIGUOUS: more than one case-folded slash-normalized candidate.
• PATH_STYLE_UNKNOWN: no supported separator-style candidate.
• OUTSIDE_SELECTED_ROOT: lexical traversal would leave the selected root; resolution stops.
• UNSUPPORTED_UNKNOWN: an absolute, drive, rooted-backslash or URI-style entry is not resolved or fetched.

Limits are part of the result

One playlist: at most 1,048,576 bytes. Selection: 1–20,000 files. Text: at most 10,000 parsed lines including comments and blanks. All result rows remain reachable in groups of up to 100. Each displayed path has a 500-character bound with an explicit marker; only the first 10 candidate names are previewed, with the full count retained.

Remote playlists, HLS, legacy encodings, aliases, symlinks, native path normalization, media validity and target-player rules are outside the observed model. A directory-capable browser is required; this is not certification for every browser or operating system.