NAME¶
pulse-cli-syntax - PulseAudio Command Line Interface Syntax
SYNOPSIS¶
~/.pulse/default.pa
/etc/pulse/default.pa
/etc/pulse/system.pa
DESCRIPTION¶
PulseAudio provides a simple command line language used by configuration scripts
and the pacmd interactive shell, and the modules module-cli and
module-cli-protocol-{unix,tcp}. Empty lines and lines beginning with a
hashmark (#) are silently ignored. Several commands are supported.
Note that any boolean arguments can be given positively as '1', 'on' or any word
starting with the letters 't' or 'y'. Likewise, negative values can be given
as '0', 'off' or any word starting with the letters 'f' or 'n'. Case is
ignored.
GENERAL COMMANDS¶
- help
- Show a quick help on the commands available.
STATUS_COMMANDS¶
- list-modules
- Show all currently loaded modules with their
arguments.
- list-cards
- Show all currently registered cards
- list-sinks or list-sources
- Show all currently registered sinks (resp. sources).
- list-clients
- Show all currently active clients.
- list-sink-inputs or list-source-outputs
- Show all currently active inputs to sinks a.k.a. playback
streams (resp. outputs of sources a.k.a. recording streams).
- stat
- Show some simple statistics about the allocated memory
blocks and the space used by them.
- info or ls or list
- A combination of all status commands described above (all
three commands are synonyms).
MODULE MANAGEMENT¶
- load-module name [arguments...]
- Load a module specified by its name and arguments. For most
modules it is OK to be loaded more than once.
- unload-module index
- Unload a module specified by its index in the module list
as returned by list-modules.
- describe-module name
- Give information about a module specified by its name.
VOLUME COMMANDS¶
- set-sink-volume|set-source-volume index|name
volume
- Set the volume of the specified sink (resp. source). You
may specify the sink (resp. source) either by its index in the sink/source
list or by its name. The volume should be an integer value greater or
equal than 0 (muted). Volume 65536 (0x10000) is 'normal' volume a.k.a.
100%. Values greater than this amplify the audio signal (with
clipping).
- set-sink-mute|set-source-mute index|name
boolean
- Mute or unmute the specified sink (resp. source). You may
specify the sink (resp. source) either by its index or by its name. The
mute value is either 0 (not muted) or 1 (muted).
- set-sink-input-volume|set-source-output-volume
index volume
- Set the volume of a sink input (resp. source output)
specified by its index. The same volume rules apply as with
set-sink-volume.
- set-sink-input-mute|set-source-output-mute
index boolean
- Mute or unmute a sink input (resp. source output) specified
by its index. The same mute rules apply as with set-sink-mute.
CONFIGURATION COMMANDS¶
- set-default-sink|set-default-source
index|name
- Make a sink (resp. source) the default. You may specify the
sink (resp. source) by its index in the sink (resp. source) list or by its
name.
Note that defaults may be overridden by various policy modules or by
specific stream configurations.
- set-card-profile index|name
profile-name
- Change the profile of a card.
- set-sink-port|set-source-port index|name
port-name
- Change the profile of a sink (resp. source).
- suspend-sink|suspend-source index|name
boolean
- Suspend (i.e. disconnect from the underlying hardware) a
sink (resp. source).
- suspend boolean
- Suspend all sinks and sources.
MOVING STREAMS¶
- move-sink-input|move-source-output index
sink-index|sink-name
- Move sink input (resp. source output) to another sink
(resp. source).
PROPERTY LISTS¶
- update-sink-proplist|update-source-proplist
index|name properties
- Update the properties of a sink (resp. source) specified by
name or index. The property is specified as e.g.
device.description="My Preferred Name"
- update-sink-input-proplist|update-source-output-proplist
index properties
- Update the properties of a sink input (resp. source output)
specified by index. The properties are specified as above.
SAMPLE CACHE¶
- list-samples
- Lists the contents of the sample cache.
- play-sample name
sink-index|sink-name
- Play a sample cache entry to a sink.
- remove-sample name
- Remove an entry from the sample cache.
- load-sample name filename
- Load an audio file to the sample cache.
- load-sample-lazy name filename
- Create a new entry in the sample cache, but don't load the
sample immediately. The sample is loaded only when it is first used. After
a certain idle time it is freed again.
- load-sample-dir-lazy path
- Load all entries in the specified directory into the sample
cache as lazy entries. A shell globbing expression (e.g. *.wav) may be
appended to the path of the directory to add.
KILLING CLIENTS/STREAMS¶
- kill-client index
- Remove a client forcibly from the server. There is no
protection against the client reconnecting immediately.
- kill-sink-input|kill-source-output index
- Remove a sink input (resp. source output) forcibly from the
server. This will not remove the owning client or any other streams opened
by the same client from the server.
LOG COMMANDS¶
- set-log-level numeric-level
- Change the log level.
- set-log-meta boolean
- Show source code location in log messages.
- set-log-time boolean
- Show timestamps in log messages.
- set-log-backtrace num-frames
- Show backtrace in log messages.
MISCELLANEOUS COMMANDS¶
- play-file filename
sink-index|sink-name
- Play an audio file to a sink.
- dump
- Dump the daemon's current configuration in CLI
commands.
- dump-volumes
- Debug: Shows the current state of all volumes.
- shared
- Debug: Show shared properties.
- exit
- Terminate the daemon. If you want to terminate a CLI
connection ("log out") you might want to use ctrl+d
In addition the the commands described above there a few meta directives
supported by the command line interpreter.
- .include filename|folder
- Executes the commands from the specified script file or in
all of the *.pa file within the folder.
- .fail and .nofail
- Enable (resp. disable) that following failing commands will
cancel the execution of the current script file. This is a ignored when
used on the interactive command line.
- .verbose and .noverbose
- Enable (resp. disable) extra verbosity.
AUTHORS¶
The PulseAudio Developers <pulseaudio-discuss (at) lists (dot) freedesktop
(dot) org>; PulseAudio is available from
http://pulseaudio.org/
SEE ALSO¶
default.pa(5),
pacmd(1),
pulseaudio(1)