The string interface enables application control of media devices using textual string commands. String commands are passed to the media control interface through the mciSendString function. Return information from string commands is converted to string format and returned in the pszReturnString parameter of mciSendString.

Not all functions available through the procedural interface, mciSendCommand, are available through the string interface. In general, operations that return complex data structures, such as a CD table of contents, are available only through the procedural interface. Operations that cause asynchronous responses to be generated, such as cue point and position advise, can be invoked from the string interface; however, their responses are returned to window procedures.

The keywords WAIT and NOTIFY are global keywords and are available for all commands except some system commands. As with the procedural interface, the default time base is MMTIME. The multimedia string parser is case insensitive.

Command Format

The string format is:

COMMAND ÄÄÄ object ÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄ´
                      ÀÄ keywords ÄÙ  ÃÄ WAIT ÄÄÄ´
                                      ÀÄ NOTIFY ÄÙ
where
object         = device type | device name | filename | alias
keywords       = command-specific keywords
WAIT | NOTIFY  = standard OS/2 multimedia definitions

The object associated with a media control interface command can be one of the following: