ITunes get every Artist

Question

Is there a way to get a list of every artist in the iTunes library, and not have duplicates of it, and have it sorted alphabetically?
I tried "get artist of every track of playlist "Library"" but that didn't really give me what I wanted.
Also, I'm sure the process would be nearly the same, but I would also like to generate a list of all the albums in the Library.
When I say "list" I don't actually want/need a list I suppose. I want something like the "every track of playlist "Library"" so I can put it through a repeat to wrap the stuff in some html.

Answer 1

Hello Neil D,
In order to get album name by artist name, the following code is the simplest one though it may be slow for large number of tracks.
(You have to specify container object to get its elements, e.g., 'tell playlist to get its tracks' or 'get tracks of playlist'. Your posted code didn't work because it fails to do so.)
-- SCRIPT (album by artist)
tell application "iTunes"
--set p to playlist "Library"
set p to view of browser window 1
tell p
set bb to album of tracks whose artist = "XXXX"
--set bb to album of tracks whose artist contains "XXXX"
end tell
return bb
end tell
-- END OF SCRIPT (album by artist)
As for getting unique artist names in ascending order, you may try this. It is written in plain AppleScript. You may, however, modify the code to employ shell commands, sort(1) and uniq(1), which should be faster for large list, via 'do shell script' osax.
-- SCRIPT
  get unique artists list
  v0.1
main()
on main()
tell application "iTunes"
--set p to playlist "Library"
set p to view of browser window 1
tell p
set aa to artist of tracks
--set aa to album of tracks
end tell
end tell
msort(aa)
return uniq(aa)
end main
on uniq(aa)
  list aa : pre-sorted list
    (precisely, a list organized such that any duplicate items are adjacent to each other)
script o
property xx : aa
property yy : {}
local t
if my xx = {} then return {}
set t to my xx's item 1
set end of my yy to t
repeat with i from 2 to count my xx
set x to my xx's item i
if x = t then
else
set end of my yy to x
set t to x
end if
end repeat
return my yy's contents
end script
tell o to run
end uniq
on msort(aa)
(* Basic non-recursive merge sort handler having list sorted in place in ascending order. *)
  list aa : list to be sorted in place in acsending order
script o
property xx : aa -- to be sorted in place
property xxl : count my xx
property yy : {}
on merge(p, q, r)
  property xx: source list -- [*1]
  integer p, q, r : absolute indicies to specify range to be merged such that
      xx's items p thru r is the target range,
      xx's items p thru (q-1) is the first sublist already sorted (in ascending order) and
      xx's items q thru r is the second sublist already sorted (in ascending order).
      (p < q <= r)
  Notes
  [1] It assumes that xx[p, q-1] and xx[q, r] have been already sorted (p < q <= r).
    Also xx is modified in place.
local i, j, k, xp, xr, yi, yj, ix, jx
if r - p = 1 then
set xp to my xx's item p
set xr to my xx's item r
if xp > xr then
set my xx's item p to xr
set my xx's item r to xp
end if
return -- exit
end if
(* for faster merging of sublists already in order *)
if my xx's item (q - 1) > my xx's item q then
else -- xx[p, q-1] & xx[q, r] are already sorted
return
end if
set yy to my xx's items p thru r -- working copy for comparison
set ix to q - p
set jx to r - p + 1
set i to 1
set j to q - p + 1
set k to p
set yi to my yy's item i
set yj to my yy's item j
repeat
if yi > yj then
set my xx's item k to yj
set j to j + 1
set k to k + 1
if j > jx then
set my xx's item k to yi
set i to i + 1
set k to k + 1
repeat until k > r
set my xx's item k to my yy's item i
set i to i + 1
set k to k + 1
end repeat
return
end if
set yj to my yy's item j
else
set my xx's item k to yi
set i to i + 1
set k to k + 1
if i > ix then
set my xx's item k to yj
set j to j + 1
set k to k + 1
repeat until k > r
set my xx's item k to my yy's item j
set j to j + 1
set k to k + 1
end repeat
return
end if
set yi to my yy's item i
end if
end repeat
end merge
local d, i, j
if xxl <= 1 then return
set d to 2
repeat until d > xxl
repeat with i from 1 to (xxl - d + 1) by d
my merge(i, i + d div 2, i + d - 1)
end repeat
set i to i + d
set j to i + d div 2
if j <= xxl then my merge(i, j, xxl)
set d to d * 2
end repeat
if i <= xxl then my merge(1, i, xxl)
end script
tell o to run
end msort
-- END OF SCRIPT
Hope this may help
H