polypaudio provides a simple command line language used by configuration scripts as well as 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:
Show a quick help on the commands available.
Terminate the daemon. If you want to terminate a CLI connection ("log out") you might want to use C-d.
Show all currently loaded modules with their arguments.
Show all currently registered sinks (resp. sources).
Show all currently active clients.
Show all currently active inputs to sinks (resp. outputs of sources).
Show some simple statistics about the allocated memory blocks and the space used by them.
A combination of all status commands described above. ls and list are synonyms for info.
Load a module specified by its name and arguments. For most modules it is OK to be loaded more than once.
Unload a module specified by its index in the module list as returned by modules.
Set the volume of the specified sink. You may specify the sink either by its index in the sink list or by its name. The volume should be an integer value greater or equal than 0 (= muted). Volume 256 (0x100) is normal volume, values greater than this amplify the audio signal with clipping.
Set the volume of a sink input specified by its index the the sink input list. The same volume rules apply as with sink_volume.
Make a sink (resp. source) the default. You may specify the sink (resp. ssource) by its index in the sink (resp. source) list or by its name.
Lists the contents of the sample cache.
Play a sample cache entry to a sink. Expects the sample name and the sink name as arguments.
Remove an entry from the sample cache. Expects the sample name as argument.
Load an audio file to the sample cache. Expects the file name to load and the desired sample name as arguments.
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. Expects the the desired sample name and file name to load as arguments.
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.
Lists all currently defined autoloading entries.
Adds an autoloading entry for a sink (resp. source). Expects the sink name (resp. source name), the module name and the module arguments as arguments.
Remove an autoloading entry. Expects the sink name (resp. source name) as argument.
Play an audio file to a sink. Expects the file name and the sink name as argumens.
Dump the daemon's current configuration in CLI commands.
Remove a client forcibly from the server. There is no protection that the client reconnects immediately.
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 client from the server.
In addition the the commands described above there a few meta directives supported by the command line interpreter:
Executes the commands from the specified script file.
Enable (resp. disable) that following failing commands will cancel the execution of the current script file. This is a ignored when used on the interactive command line.
Enable (resp. disable) extra verbosity.
Mark the following script as executable (chmod +x) and run it for a sensible polypaudio configuration.
#!/usr/bin/polaudio -nF # Create autoload entries for the device drivers add-autoload-sink output module-alsa-sink device=plughw:0,0 rate=48000 sink_name=output add-autoload-sink output2 module-oss device=/dev/dsp1 record=0 sink_name=output2 add-autoload-sink combined module-combine master=output slaves=output2 sink_name=combined add-autoload-source input module-alsa-source device=hw:1,0 source_name=input # Load several protocols load-module module-esound-protocol-unix load-module module-simple-protocol-tcp load-module module-native-protocol-unix load-module module-cli-protocol-unix # Make some devices default set-default-sink combined set-default-source input # Don't fail if the audio files referred to below don't exist .nofail # Load an audio to the sample cache for usage with module-x11-bell load-sample-lazy /usr/share/sounds/KDE_Notify.wav x11-bell load-module module-x11-bell sample=x11-bell # Play a welcome sound play-file /usr/share/sounds/startup3.wav combined