Get MP3 Length in Linux / FreeBSD

I have a bunch of mp3 files with various length. I want to cut it down to 50%-60% length. Says, from 1 minute down to 30 seconds. It should be trivial using ffmpeg. But, I don't know how to determine the original length of it as a base for processing using ffmpeg.

Anyone have an idea?

With ffmpeg there's no way I know to get the length as a variable you can use on a script. But mp3info does.

mp3info -p "%S" sample.mp3   // total time in seconds

ffmpeg will print everything it knows about the file if you don't give it any other arguments. Use grep to strip out everything but the "Duration":

$ ffmpeg -i foo.mp3 2>&1 | grep Duration
  Duration: 01:02:20.20, start: 0.000000, bitrate: 128 kb/s

You could also use mplayer. Grep for line "ID_LENGTH=":

$ mplayer -ao null -identify -frames 0 foo.mp3 2>&1 | grep ID_LENGTH
ID_LENGTH=3740.00

Interestingly the EXIFTool application gives MP3 duration as the last line!

$ exiftool somefile.mp3
ExifTool Version Number         : 7.98
File Name                       : somefile.mp3
Directory                       : .
File Size                       : 49 MB
File Modification Date/Time     : 2009:09:10 11:04:54+05:30
File Type                       : MP3
MIME Type                       : audio/mpeg
MPEG Audio Version              : 2.5
Audio Layer                     : 3
Audio Bitrate                   : 64000
Sample Rate                     : 8000
Channel Mode                    : Single Channel
MS Stereo                       : Off
Intensity Stereo                : Off
Copyright Flag                  : False
Original Media                  : True
Emphasis                        : None
ID3 Size                        : 26
Genre                           : Blues
Duration                        : 1:47:46 (approx)

Just another way to get the duration only using ffmpeg and grep:

# ffmpeg -i rara.mp3 2>&1 |grep -oP "[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}:[0-9]{2}.[0-9]{2}"
00:03:49.12