SABnzbd Forums

I'd like to learn how to write my own pre-queue and post-processing scripts in batch, but I found that the documentation wasn't really clear.

I understand perfectly how the parameters and variables can be used with batch syntax to conditionally generate output, but I don't get how input or return parameters are differentiated, what exactly is the 7 lines thing (if SABnzbd will only read echo from above, then why even use echo below it?) and the general syntax of it.

The available example, as well as a few other on the forum, gives me an idea of what's happening, but I can't quite grasp the concept.

Could someone do me the kindness of pointing me to some reading or perhaps explaining it to me?

Thank you!

What kind of script are you trying to write? A pre-queue script or a post-processing script?
Pre-queue scripts indeed read the last 7 lines from your output and parse that.
Post-scripts only care about the exit() code.
Maybe if you share what you have so far, we can help out.

Well, right now, I intend to write a pre-queue script to auto pause NZBs containing a certain string, but what I'm really after is learning how this works, so I can easily write scripts as I have new needs.

e.g. I've been trying to comprehend this script from user newsleecher, which auto-pauses every new NZB:
Here, I can see how the parameters and batch commands do the redirection, but I don't understand how the output is given. I know that -2 is pause, but I don't know how it's explicited that it refers to %5. Nor do I know how differentiate input and return parameters...

SABnzbd uses 7 parameters, of which the 6th is the pause paramter
So first it prints the first 5 parameters to accept the job (that's the number 1) And then it does the logic, which only goes to this part if needed;

Ah, now I see it. I didn't get that the return parameters were called sequentially!

But I think that the naming scheme chosen for this is quite confusing. Shouldn't the input parameters be called input variables? I think they relate way more to the environment variables than to the return parameters...

I think the naming got lost in translation, from Dutch-to-English

That makes sense. Is there an issue tracker for the wiki/documentation? I'd like to open an issue. Otherwise, I guess since you're Administrator, the matter is already in good hands

https://github.com/sabnzbd/sabnzbd.github.io
You can even submit a pull-request to change the names if you want!