[This is preliminary documentation and subject to change.]
A show reference is a null-terminated ASCII string containing fields delimited by exclamation marks ( ! ). Numerical fields are spelled out in ASCII digits.
The syntax of a show reference string is as follows:
yyyy/mm/dd!yyyy/mm/dd!hh:MM!du!in!fl!type!w!w!w!w!'network'!'station'!
'TuningSpace'!channel!'title'
The following table describes the placeholders in show reference syntax. All times are specified in coordinated universal time (UTC) in a 24-hour clock.
| Placeholder | Description |
|---|---|
| yyyy | The year. If this field contains the five digits 65535, it means any year. The first yyyy field in the syntax is for the start date; the second is for the end date. |
| mm | The month. If this field contains the digits 65535, it means any month. The first mm field is for the start date; the second is for the end date. |
| dd | The day of the month. If this field contains the digits 65535, it means any day. The first dd field is for the start date; the second is for the end date. |
| network | The network affiliate of the station. This affiliate can be the same as the station in some cases. In other situations, a national network is the affiliate for a local station. |
| hh | The hour portion of the time at which the show begins. If this field contains the digits 65535, it means any hour of the day. |
| MM | The minute portion of the time at which the show begins. If this field contains the digits 65535, it means any minute of the hour. |
| du | The duration of the show in minutes. This value is valid only if the TASK_TRIGGER_FLAG_KILL_AT_DURATION_END flag is set in the fl parameter of the show reference. |
| in | The interval at which to run the show reminder. Because a typical show reminder only runs once, this value is usually zero. |
| fl | Flags for interpretation of the preceding dates. These flags are the same as the ones in the TASK_TRIGGER structure of the Task Scheduler : TASK_TRIGGER_FLAG_HAS_END_DATE, TASK_TRIGGER_FLAG_KILL_AT_DURATION_END, and TASK_TRIGGER_FLAG_DISABLED. |
| type | This parameter is set as the TriggerType member of the TASK_TRIGGER structure. It takes a TASK_TRIGGER_TYPE data type. To locate more information on TASK_TRIGGER, see Further Information on Television Services for the Client. |
| w | This parameter is set as the Type member of the TASK_TRIGGER structure. It takes a TRIGGER_TYPE_UNION data type. |
| station | The station's call letters, for example KZZZ. This field can be empty. |
| TuningSpace | A string that contains the name of the source, or tuning space, of the broadcast. An empty string ('') in this field means any source. Tuning space names are strings, such as 'Cable', that represent a tunable video source, for example, cable, satellite broadcast, or terrestrial analog broadcast. Tuning space names are stored as named values under the registry key \HKLM\Software\Microsoft\TVServices\Tuning Spaces\TuningSpaceNumber where TuningSpaceNumber indicates the numerical identifier of the tuning space. |
| channel | An integer denoting the channel in the tuning space. If this field contains –1 (minus one), it means any channel. |
| title | The title of the television show. This title must not contain double quotation marks ( " ). The title field can be a limited regular expression with the syntax and semantics defined in Structured Query Language (SQL). Thus, "*" means any title, "*News*" means any title with "News" in it, and so on. An empty string, two single quotation marks ( '' ), indicates any show. To locate more information on SQL, see Further General Information. |
Note This description of the show reference format is for debugging purposes only. This format may change in future versions of Broadcast Architecture. Developers should compose and parse show references using the MakeLocalBroadcastSchedule and MakeRemoteBroadcastSchedule methods of the ITelevisionServices interface.
The following are examples of valid show references.
1998/3/13!0/0/0!23:35!0!0!0!0!0!0!0!0!''!'MSNBC'!'Cable'!4!'Time & Again'
1998/4/22!73/1/0!2:0!0!0!0!0!0!0!0!0!''!'MSNBC'!'Cable'!38!'InterNight'