The Music Player Daemon protocolGeneral protocol syntaxRequests
If arguments contain spaces, they should be surrounded by double quotation
marks.
COMMANDARG
All data between the client and the server is encoded in
UTF-8. (Note: 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 encoded in
UTF-8 is simply OK. For more
information on UTF=8:
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~mgk25/unicode.html#utf-8)
Responses
A command returns OK on completion
or ACK some error on failure.
These denote the end of command execution.
Command lists
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_begin is used,
list_OK is returned for each
successful command executed in the command list.
Command reference
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 ids should be used instead of the commands
that manipulate and control playback based on playlist
position. Using song ids is a safer method when multiple
clients are interacting with MPD.
Querying MPD's statusclearerror
Clears the current error message in status (this is also
accomplished by any command that starts playback).
currentsong
Displays the song info of the current song (same song that
is identified in status).
idleSUBSYSTEMS
Waits until there is a noteworthy change in one or more
of MPD's subsystems. As soon as there is one, it lists
all changed systems in a line in the format
changed: SUBSYSTEM, where
SUBSYSTEM is one of the following:
database: the song database
has been updated
stored_playlist: a stored
playlist has been modified, renamed, created or
deleted
playlist: the current
playlist has been modified
player: the player has been
started, stopped or seeked
mixer: the volume has been
changed
output: an audio output has
been enabled or disabled
options: options like
, ,
While a client is waiting for idle
results, the server disables timeouts, allowing a client
to wait for events as long as mpd runs. The
idle command can be canceled by
sending the command noidle (no other
commands are allowed). MPD will then leave
idle mode and print results
immediately; might be empty at this time.
If the optional SUBSYSTEMS argument is used,
MPD will only send notifications when something changed in
one of the specified subsytems.
status
Reports the current status of the player and the volume
level.
volume:
0-100repeat:
0 or 1playlist:
31-bit unsigned integer, the playlist
version numberplaylistlength:
integer, the length of the
playliststate:
play, stop, or pausesong:
playlist song number of the current
song stopped on or playing
songid:
playlist songid of the current song
stopped on or playing
time:
total time elapsed (of current
playing/paused song)bitrate:
instantaneous bitrate in
kbpsxfade:
crossfade in secondsaudio:
sampleRate:bits:channelsupdatings_db:
job iderror:
if there is an error, returns message
herestats
Displays statistics.
artists: number of artists
songs: number of albums
uptime: daemon uptime in seconds
db_playtime: sum of all song
times in the db
db_update: last db update in UNIX
time
playtime: time length of music played
Playback optionscrossfadeSECONDS
Sets crossfading between songs.
randomSTATE
Sets random state to STATE,
STATE should be 0 or 1.
repeatSTATE
Sets repeat state to STATE,
STATE should be 0 or 1.
setvolVOL
Sets volume to VOL, the range of
volume is 0-100.
volumeCHANGE
Changes volume by amount CHANGE.
volume is deprecated, use
setvol instead.
Controlling playbacknext
Plays next song in the playlist.
pausePAUSE
Toggles pause/resumes playing, PAUSE is 0 or 1.
The use of pause command w/o the PAUSE argument is
deprecated.
playSONGPOS
Begins playing the playlist at song number
SONGPOS.
playidSONGID
Begins playing the playlist at song
SONGID.
previous
Plays previous song in the playlist.
seekSONGPOSTIME
Seeks to the position TIME (in
seconds) of entry SONGPOS in the
playlist.
seekidSONGIDTIME
Seeks to the position TIME (in
seconds) of song SONGID.
stop
Stops playing.
The current playlistaddURI
Adds the file URI to the playlist
(directories add recursively). URI
can also be a single file.
addidURIPOSITION
Adds a song to the playlist (non-recursive) and returns the song id.
URI 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).
For example:
addid "foo.mp3"
Id: 999
OK
clear
Clears the current playlist.
deleteSONGPOS
Deletes a song from the playlist.
deleteidSONGID
Deletes the song SONGID from the
playlist
moveFROMSTART:ENDTO
Moves the song at FROM or range of songs
at START:END to TO
in the playlist.
moveidFROMTO
Moves the song with FROM (songid) to
TO (playlist index) in the
playlist. If TO is negative, it
is relative to the current song in the playlist (if
there is one).
playlist
Displays the current playlist.
Do not use this, instead use playlistinfo.
playlistfindTAGNEEDLE
Finds songs in the current playlist with strict
matching.
playlistidSONGID
Displays a list of songs in the playlist.
SONGID is optional and specifies a
single song to display info for.
playlistinfoSONGPOSSTART:END
Displays a list of all songs in the playlist, or if the optional
argument is given, displays information only for the song
SONGPOS or the range of songs
START:ENDplaylistsearchTAGNEEDLE
Searches case-sensitively for partial matches in the
current playlist.
plchangesVERSION
Displays changed songs currently in the playlist since
VERSION.
To detect songs that were deleted at the end of the
playlist, use playlistlength returned by status command.
plchangesposidVERSION
Displays changed songs currently in the playlist since
VERSION. This function only
returns the position and the id of the changed song, not
the complete metadata. This is more bandwidth efficient.
To detect songs that were deleted at the end of the
playlist, use playlistlength returned by status command.
shuffleSTART:END
Shuffles the current playlist.
START:END is optional and specifies
a range of songs.
swapSONG1SONG2
Swaps the positions of SONG1 and
SONG2.
swapidSONG1SONG2
Swaps the positions of SONG1 and
SONG2 (both song ids).
Stored playlistslistplaylistNAME
Lists the files in the playlist
NAME.m3u.
listplaylistinfoNAME
Lists songs in the playlist NAME.m3u.
listplaylists
Prints a list of the playlist directory.
After each playlist name the server sends its last
modification time as attribute "Last-Modified" in ISO
8601 format. To avoid problems due to clock differences
between clients and the server, clients should not
compare this value with their local clock.
loadNAME
Loads the playlist NAME.m3u from
the playlist directory.
playlistaddNAMEURI
Adds URI to the playlist
NAME.m3u.
NAME.m3u will be created if it does
not exist.
playlistclearNAME
Clears the playlist NAME.m3u.
playlistdeleteNAMESONGPOS
Deletes SONGPOS from the
playlist NAME.m3u.
playlistmoveNAMESONGIDSONGPOS
Moves SONGID in the playlist
NAME.m3u to the position
SONGPOS.
renameNAMENEW_NAME
Renames the playlist NAME.m3u to NEW_NAME.m3u.
rmNAME
Removes the playlist NAME.m3u from
the playlist directory.
saveNAME
Saves the current playlist to
NAME.m3u in the playlist directory.
The music databasecountTAGNEEDLE
Counts the number of songs and their total playtime in
the db matching TAG exactly.
findTYPEWHAT
Finds songs in the db that are exactly
WHAT. TYPE should
be album,
artist, or
title. WHAT
is what to find.
listTYPEARTIST
Lists all tags of the specified type.
TYPE should be album or artist.
ARTIST is an optional parameter when
type is album, this specifies to list albums by an
artist.
listallURI
Lists all songs and directories in
URI.
listallinfoURI
Same as listall, except it also
returns metadata info in the same format as
lsinfo.
lsinfoURI
Lists the contents of the directory
URI.
When listing the root directory, this currently returns
the list of stored playlists. This behavior is
deprecated; use "listplaylists" instead.
searchTYPEWHAT
Searches for any song that contains
WHAT. TYPE can be
title,
artist,
album or
filename. Search is not case
sensitive.
updateURI
Updates the music database.
URI is a particular directory or
song/file to update.
Prints "updating_db: JOBID" where
JOBID is the job id requested for
your update, and is displayed in status, while the
requested update is happening.
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 job id will be returned per
sequence of updates.
Stickers
"Stickers" are pieces of information attached to existing MPD
objects (e.g. song files, directories, albums). Clients can
create arbitrary name/value pairs. MPD itself does not assume
any special meaning in them.
The goal is to allow clients to share additional (possibly
dynamic) information about songs, which is neither stored on
the client (not available to other clients), nor stored in the
song files (MPD has no write access).
Client developers should create a standard for common sticker
names, to ensure interoperability.
Objects which may have stickers are addressed by their object
type ("song" for song objects) and their URI (the path within
the database for songs).
stickergetTYPEURINAME
Reads a sticker value for the specified object.
stickersetTYPEURINAMEVALUE
Adds a sticker value to the specified object. If a
sticker item with that name already exists, it is
replaced.
stickerlistTYPEURI
Lists the stickers for the specified object.
Connection settingsclose
Closes the connection to MPD.
kill
Kills MPD.
passwordPASSWORD
This is used for authentication with the server.
PASSWORD is simply the plaintext
password.
ping
Does nothing but return "OK".
Audio output devicesdisableoutput
Turns an output off.
enableoutput
Turns an output on.
outputs
Shows information about all outputs.
Reflectioncommands
Shows which commands the current user has access to.
notcommands
Shows which commands the current user does not have
access to.
tagtypes
Shows a list of available song metadata.
urlhandlers
Gets a list of available URL handlers.