Music Player Daemon - Commands WARNING This document has not been updated to reflect recent changes in the MPD protocol. It does not contain all supported commands, and some commands may now take additional arguments. However, clients conforming to this specification should still be compatible with the latest release of MPD. For more up to date documentation, please see the protocol reference on the wiki at <http://mpd.wikia.com/wiki/Protocol_Reference>. This document is intended for client developers, not end users. Format: ------- If arguments contain spaces, they should be surrounded by double quotation marks, ". command <type arg1> <type arg2> ... explanation: w/ arg1 and arg2 All data between the client and server is encoded in UTF-8. (Note, that in UTF-8 all standard ansi characters, 0-127, are the same as a standard ansi encoding. Also, no ansi character appears in any multi-byte characters. So, you can use standard C functions like strlen, and strcpy just fine with UTF-8 encoded strings. For example: "OK\n" encoded in UTF-8 is simply "OK\n". For more information on UTF=8: http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#utf-8 ) Command Completion: ------------------- A command returns "OK\n" on completion or "ACK some error\n" on failure. These denote the end of command execution. NOTE: ----- For manipulating playlists and playing, there are two sets of commands. One set uses the song id of a song in the playlist, while another set uses the playlist position of the song. The commands using song id's should be used instead of the commands that manipulate and control playback based on playlist position. Using song id's is a safer method when multiple clients are interacting with MPD. Commands: --------- add <string path> add the file _path_ to the playlist (directories add recursively) _path_ can also be a single file increments playlist version by for each song added addid <string path> <int position> _path_ is always a single file or URL _position_ is optional, a negative number means it is relative to the currently playing song in the playlist (if there is one) adds a song to the playlist (non-recursive) and returns the song id; example: addid "foo.mp3" Id: 999 OK clear clears the current playlist increments playlist version by 1 clearerror clear the current error message in status (this is also accomplished by any command that starts playback) close close the connection with the MPD crossfade <int seconds> sets crossfading between songs currentsong displays the song info of current song (same song that is identified in status) delete <int song> delete _song_ from playlist increments playlist version by 1 deleteid <int songid> delete song with _songid_ from playlist increments playlist version by 1 find <string type> <string what> finds songs in the db that are exactly _what_ _type_ should be "album", "artist", or "title" _what_ is what to find kill kill MPD list <string type> <string arg1> list all tags of _type_ _type_ should be "album" or "artist" _arg1_ is an optional parameter when type is album, this specifies to list albums by a artist, where artist is specified with arg1 listall <string path> lists all songs and directories in _path_ (recursively) _path_ is optional and maybe a directory or path listallinfo <string path> same as listall command, except it also returns metadata info in the same format as lsinfo load <string name> loads the playlist _name_.m3u from the playlist directory increments playlist version by the number of songs added lsinfo <string directory> list contents of _directory_, from the db. _directory_ is optional move <int from> <int to> move song at _from_ to _to_ in the playlist increments playlist version by 1 moveid <int songid> <int to> move song with _songid_ to _to_ in the playlist increments playlist version by 1 if _to_ is negative, it is relative to the current song in the playlist (if there is one). next plays next song in playlist pause <bool pause> toggle pause/resume playing _pause_ is required and should be 0 or 1 NOTE: use of pause command w/o the _pause_ argument is deprecated password <string password> this is used for authentication with the server. _password_ is simply the plaintext password ping does nothing but return "OK" play <int song> begin playing playlist at song number _song_, _song_ is optional playid <int songid> begin playing playlist at song with _songid_, _songid_ is optional playlist displays the current playlist NOTE: do not use this, instead use 'playlistinfo' playlistinfo <int song> displays list of songs in the playlist _song_ is optional and specifies a single song to display info for playlistid <int songid> displays list of songs in the playlist _songid_ is optional and specifies a single song to display info for plchanges <playlist version> displays changed songs currently in the playlist since _playlist version_ NOTE: to detect songs that were deleted at the end of the playlist, use playlistlength returned by status command. plchangesposid <playlist version> displays changed songs currently in the playlist since _playlist version_ This function only returns the position and the id of the changed song, not the complete metadata. This is more bandwidth efficient. NOTE: to detect songs that were deleted at the end of the playlist, use playlistlength returned by status command. previous plays previous song in playlist random <int state> set random state to _state_, _state_ should be 0 or 1 repeat <int state> set repeat state to _state_, _state_ should be 0 or 1 rm <string name> removes the playlist <name>.m3u from the playlist directory save <string name> saves the current playlist to _name_.m3u in the playlist directory search <string type> <string what> searches for any song that contain _what_ _type_ can be "title","artist","album", or "filename" search is not case sensitive seek <int song> <int time> seeks to the position _time_ (in seconds) of entry _song_ in the playlist seekid <int songid> <int time> seeks to the position _time_ (in seconds) of song with _songid_ setvol <int vol> set volume to _vol_ _vol_ the range of volume is 0-100 shuffle shuffles the current playlist increments playlist version by 1 stats display stats artists: number of artists albums: number of albums songs: number of songs uptime: daemon uptime in seconds db_playtime: sum of all song times in db db_update: last db update in UNIX time playtime: time length of music played status reports current status of player, and volume level. volume: (0-100). repeat: (0 or 1) playlist: (31-bit unsigned integer, the playlist version number) playlistlength: (integer, the length of the playlist) state: ("play", "stop", or "pause") song: (current song stopped on or playing, playlist song number) songid: (current song stopped on or playing, playlist songid) time: <int elapsed>:<time total> (of current playing/paused song) bitrate: <int bitrate> (instantaneous bitrate in kbps) xfade: <int seconds> (crossfade in seconds) audio: <int sampleRate>:<int bits>:<int channels> updatings_db: <int job id> error: if there is an error, returns message here stop stop playing swap <int song1> <int song2> swap positions of _song1_ and _song2_ increments playlist version by 1 swapid <int songid1> <int songid2> swap positions of of songs with song id's of _songid1_ and _songid2_ increments playlist version by 1 update <string path> searches mp3 directory for new music and removes old music from the db _path_ is an optional argument that maybe a particular directory or song/file to update. returned: updating_db: <int job id> where job id, is the job id requested for your update, and is displayed in status, while the requested update is happening increments playlist version by 1 NOTE: To update a number of paths/songs at once, use command_list, it will be much more faster/efficient. Also, if you use a command_list for updating, only one update_db job id will be returned per sequence of updates. volume <int change> change volume by amount _change_ NOTE: volume command is deprecated, use setvol instead COMMAND LIST ------------ To facilitate faster adding of files, etc, you can pass a list of commands all at once using a command list. The command list beings with: command_list_begin or: command_list_ok_begin And ends with: command_list_end It does not execute any commands until the list has ended. The return value is whatever the return for a list of commands is. On success for all commands, OK is returned. If a command fails, no more commands are executed and the appropriate ACK error is returned. If "command_list_ok_begin is used", "list_OK\n" is returned for each successful command executed in the command list.