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mpv/DOCS/man/ipc.rst
wm4 2cd25891b6 manpage: ipc: mention the socat tool
This is not realy obvious, so I assume this is a helpful hint.

Although the usefulness of such an approach is probably influenced by
the fact that the player might send events that arrive in the short
window while the socket is connected.
2014-10-19 22:34:37 +02:00

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JSON IPC
========
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 using the option
``--input-unix-socket``. Clients can connect to this socket and send commands to
the player or receive events from it. You can use the ``socat`` tool to send
commands (and receive reply) from the shell.
.. 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.
Protocol
--------
Clients can execute commands on the player by sending JSON messages of the
following form:
::
{ "command": ["command_name", "param1", "param2", ...] }
where ``command_name`` is the name of the command to be executed, followed by a
list 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. In
practice this means that messages should be minified before being sent to mpv.
mpv will then send back a reply indicating whether the command was run
correctly, and an additional field holding the command-specific return data (it
can 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 fields
can also be present. See `List of events`_ for a list of all supported events.
If the first character (after skipping whitespace) is not ``{``, the command
will be interpreted as non-JSON text command, as they are used in input.conf
(or ``mpv_command_string()`` in the client API). Additionally, line starting
with ``#`` and empty lines are ignored.
Currently, embedded 0 bytes terminate the current line, but you should not
rely on this.
Commands
--------
Additionally to the commands described in `List of Input Commands`_, a few
extra 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" }
``observe_property_string``
Like ``observe_property``, but the resulting data will always be a string.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["observe_property", 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 observe command as argument.
Example:
::
{ "command": ["unobserve_property", 1] }
{ "error": "success" }
``suspend``
Suspend the mpv main loop. There is a long-winded explanation of this in
the C API function ``mpv_suspend()``. In short, this prevents the player
from displaying the next video frame, so that you don't get blocked when
trying to access the player.
``resume``
Undo one ``suspend`` call. ``suspend`` increments an internal counter, and
``resume`` decrements it. When 0 is reached, the player is actually resumed.