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🎥 Command line media player
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mpv can be controlled by external programs using the JSON-based IPC protocol.It can be enabled by specifying the path to a unix socket or a named pipe usingthe option ``--input-ipc-server``. Clients can connect to this socket and sendcommands to the player or receive events from it.
.. warning::
This is not intended to be a secure network protocol. It is explicitly insecure: there is no authentication, no encryption, and the commands themselves are insecure too. For example, the ``run`` command is exposed, which can run arbitrary system commands. The use-case is controlling the player locally. This is not different from the MPlayer slave protocol.
Socat example-------------
You can use the ``socat`` tool to send commands (and receive replies) from theshell. Assuming mpv was started with:
::
mpv file.mkv --input-ipc-server=/tmp/mpvsocket
Then you can control it using socat:
::
> echo '{ "command": ["get_property", "playback-time"] }' | socat - /tmp/mpvsocket {"data":190.482000,"error":"success"}
In this case, socat copies data between stdin/stdout and the mpv socketconnection.
See the ``--idle`` option how to make mpv start without exiting immediately orplaying a file.
It's also possible to send input.conf style text-only commands:
::
> echo 'show-text ${playback-time}' | socat - /tmp/mpvsocket
But you won't get a reply over the socket. (This particular command shows theplayback time on the player's OSD.)
Command Prompt example----------------------
Unfortunately, it's not as easy to test the IPC protocol on Windows, sinceWindows ports of socat (in Cygwin and MSYS2) don't understand named pipes. Inthe absence of a simple tool to send and receive from bidirectional pipes, the``echo`` command can be used to send commands, but not receive replies from thecommand prompt.
Assuming mpv was started with:
::
mpv file.mkv --input-ipc-server=\\.\pipe\mpvsocket
You can send commands from a command prompt:
::
echo show-text ${playback-time} >\\.\pipe\mpvsocket
To be able to simultaneously read and write from the IPC pipe, like on Linux,it's necessary to write an external program that uses overlapped file I/O (orsome wrapper like .NET's NamedPipeClientStream.)
Protocol--------
Clients can execute commands on the player by sending JSON messages of thefollowing form:
::
{ "command": ["command_name", "param1", "param2", ...] }
where ``command_name`` is the name of the command to be executed, followed by alist of parameters. Parameters must be formatted as native JSON values(integers, strings, booleans, ...). Every message **must** be terminated with``\n``. Additionally, ``\n`` must not appear anywhere inside the message. Inpractice this means that messages should be minified before being sent to mpv.
mpv will then send back a reply indicating whether the command was runcorrectly, and an additional field holding the command-specific return data (itcan also be null).
::
{ "error": "success", "data": null }
mpv will also send events to clients with JSON messages of the following form:
::
{ "event": "event_name" }
where ``event_name`` is the name of the event. Additional event-specific fieldscan also be present. See `List of events`_ for a list of all supported events.
Because events can occur at any time, it may be difficult at times to determinewhich response goes with which command. Commands may optionally include a``request_id`` which, if provided in the command request, will be copiedverbatim into the response. mpv does not intrepret the ``request_id`` in anyway; it is solely for the use of the requester.
For example, this request:
::
{ "command": ["get_property", "time-pos"], "request_id": 100 }
Would generate this response:
::
{ "error": "success", "data": 1.468135, "request_id": 100 }
All commands, replies, and events are separated from each other with a linebreak character (``\n``).
If the first character (after skipping whitespace) is not ``{``, the commandwill be interpreted as non-JSON text command, as they are used in input.conf(or ``mpv_command_string()`` in the client API). Additionally, lines startingwith ``#`` and empty lines are ignored.
Currently, embedded 0 bytes terminate the current line, but you should notrely on this.
Commands--------
In addition to the commands described in `List of Input Commands`_, a fewextra commands can also be used as part of the protocol:
``client_name`` Return the name of the client as string. This is the string ``ipc-N`` with N being an integer number.
``get_time_us`` Return the current mpv internal time in microseconds as a number. This is basically the system time, with an arbitrary offset.
``get_property`` Return the value of the given property. The value will be sent in the data field of the replay message.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["get_property", "volume"] } { "data": 50.0, "error": "success" }
``get_property_string`` Like ``get_property``, but the resulting data will always be a string.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["get_property_string", "volume"] } { "data": "50.000000", "error": "success" }
``set_property`` Set the given property to the given value. See `Properties`_ for more information about properties.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["set_property", "pause", true] } { "error": "success" }
``set_property_string`` Like ``set_property``, but the argument value must be passed as string.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["set_property_string", "pause", "yes"] } { "error": "success" }
``observe_property`` Watch a property for changes. If the given property is changed, then an event of type ``property-change`` will be generated
Example:
::
{ "command": ["observe_property", 1, "volume"] } { "error": "success" } { "event": "property-change", "id": 1, "data": 52.0, "name": "volume" }
.. warning::
If the connection is closed, the IPC client is destroyed internally, and the observed properties are unregistered. This happens for example when sending commands to a socket with separate ``socat`` invocations. This can make it seem like property observation does not work. You must keep the IPC connection open to make it work.
``observe_property_string`` Like ``observe_property``, but the resulting data will always be a string.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["observe_property_string", 1, "volume"] } { "error": "success" } { "event": "property-change", "id": 1, "data": "52.000000", "name": "volume" }
``unobserve_property`` Undo ``observe_property`` or ``observe_property_string``. This requires the numeric id passed to the observed command as argument.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["unobserve_property", 1] } { "error": "success" }
``request_log_messages`` Enable output of mpv log messages. They will be received as events. The parameter to this command is the log-level (see ``mpv_request_log_messages`` C API function).
Log message output is meant for humans only (mostly for debugging). Attempting to retrieve information by parsing these messages will just lead to breakages with future mpv releases. Instead, make a feature request, and ask for a proper event that returns the information you need.
``enable_event``, ``disable_event`` Enables or disables the named event. Mirrors the ``mpv_request_event`` C API function. If the string ``all`` is used instead of an event name, all events are enabled or disabled.
By default, most events are enabled, and there is not much use for this command.
``get_version`` Returns the client API version the C API of the remote mpv instance provides.
See also: ``DOCS/client-api-changes.rst``.
UTF-8-----
Normally, all strings are in UTF-8. Sometimes it can happen that strings arein some broken encoding (often happens with file tags and such, and filenameson many Unixes are not required to be in UTF-8 either). This means that mpvsometimes sends invalid JSON. If that is a problem for the client application'sparser, it should filter the raw data for invalid UTF-8 sequences and performthe desired replacement, before feeding the data to its JSON parser.
mpv will not attempt to construct invalid UTF-8 with broken escape sequences.