Go to main content

man pages section 5: File Formats

Exit Print View

Updated: Wednesday, July 27, 2022
 
 

pulse-cli-syntax (5)

Name

pulse-cli-syntax - PulseAudio Command Line Interface Syntax

Synopsis

~/.config/pulse/default.pa

/etc/pulse/default.pa

/etc/pulse/system.pa

Description

pulse-cli-syntax(5)           File Formats Manual          pulse-cli-syntax(5)



NAME
       pulse-cli-syntax - PulseAudio Command Line Interface Syntax

SYNOPSIS
       ~/.config/pulse/default.pa

       /etc/pulse/default.pa

       /etc/pulse/system.pa

DESCRIPTION
       PulseAudio  provides  a simple command line language used by configura-
       tion scripts, 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  sup-
       ported.

       Note  that  any  boolean arguments can be given positively as '1', 't',
       'y', 'true', 'yes' or 'on'. Likewise, negative values can be  given  as
       '0', 'f', 'n', 'false', 'no' or 'off'. 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 mod-
              ules it is OK to be loaded more than once.

       unload-module index|name
              Unload  a  module,  specified  either by its index in the module
              list or its name.

       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 spec-
              ify 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-vol-
              ume.

       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).

       set-port-latency-offset card-index|card-name port-name offset
              Change  the  latency offset of a port belonging to the specified
              card

       suspend-sink|suspend-source name|index true|false
              Suspend or resume the specified sink or  source  (which  may  be
              specified  either  by its name or index), depending whether true
              (suspend) or false (resume) is passed as last argument. Suspend-
              ing  a sink will pause all playback and suspending a source will
              pause all capturing. Depending on the  module  implementing  the
              sink  or  source  this might have the effect that the underlying
              device is closed, making it available for other applications  to
              use. The exact behaviour depends on the module.

       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.descrip-
              tion="My Preferred Name"

       update-sink-input-proplist|update-source-output-proplist index  proper-
       ties
              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  sam-
              ple  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-target target
              Change  the  log  target  (null,  auto, journal, syslog, stderr,
              file:PATH, newfile:PATH).

       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

META COMMANDS
       In addition to the commands described above there are a few meta direc-
       tives supported by the command line interpreter.

       .include filename|folder
              Executes the commands from the specified script file or  in  all
              of the *.pa files within the folder.

       .fail and .nofail
              Enable (resp. disable) that following failing commands will can-
              cel the execution of the current script file.  This  is  ignored
              when used on the interactive command line.

       .ifexists filename
              Execute  the  subsequent block of commands only if the specified
              file exists. Typically filename  indicates  a  module.  Relative
              paths  are  resolved  using the module directory as the base. By
              using an absolute path, the existence  of  other  files  can  be
              checked as well.

       .else and .endif
              A block of commands is delimited by an .else or .endif meta com-
              mand. Nesting conditional commands is not supported.

AUTHORS
       The  PulseAudio  Developers  <pulseaudio-discuss   (at)   lists   (dot)
       freedesktop  (dot)  org>;  PulseAudio is available from http://pulseau-
       dio.org/


ATTRIBUTES
       See attributes(7) for descriptions of the following attributes:


       +---------------+--------------------------+
       |ATTRIBUTE TYPE |     ATTRIBUTE VALUE      |
       +---------------+--------------------------+
       |Availability   | library/audio/pulseaudio |
       +---------------+--------------------------+
       |Stability      | Pass-through volatile    |
       +---------------+--------------------------+

SEE ALSO
       default.pa(5), pacmd(1), pulseaudio(1)



NOTES
       Source code for open source software components in Oracle  Solaris  can
       be found at https://www.oracle.com/downloads/opensource/solaris-source-
       code-downloads.html.

       This    software    was    built    from    source     available     at
       https://github.com/oracle/solaris-userland.    The  original  community
       source was  downloaded  from   http://freedesktop.org/software/pulseau-
       dio/releases/pulseaudio-14.2.tar.xz.

       Further information about this software can be found on the open source
       community website at http://freedesktop.org/software/pulseaudio.



Manuals                              User                  pulse-cli-syntax(5)