Provided by: pulseaudio_13.99.1-1ubuntu3.13_amd64 
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 configuration 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 supported.
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 modules 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 specify 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-volume.
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. Suspending 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.description="My Preferred Name"
update-sink-input-proplist|update-source-output-proplist index properties
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 sample 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 directives 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 cancel 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 command. Nesting
conditional commands is not supported.
AUTHORS
The PulseAudio Developers <pulseaudio-discuss (at) lists (dot) freedesktop (dot) org>;
PulseAudio is available from http://pulseaudio.org/
SEE ALSO
default.pa(5), pacmd(1), pulseaudio(1)