Commands specified as arrays

This applies to certain APIs, such as mp.commandv() or mp.command_native() (with array parameters) in Lua scripting, or mpv_command() or mpv_command_node() (with MPV_FORMAT_NODE_ARRAY) in the C libmpv client API.

The command as well as all arguments are passed as a single array. Similar to the Flat command syntax, you can first pass prefixes as strings (each as separate array item), then the command name as string, and then each argument as string or a native value.

Since these APIs pass arguments as separate strings or native values, they do not expect quotes, and do support escaping. Technically, there is the input.conf parser, which first splits the command string into arguments, and then invokes argument parsers for each argument. The input.conf parser normally handles quotes and escaping. The array command APIs mentioned above pass strings directly to the argument parsers, or can sidestep them by the ability to pass non-string values.

Property expansion is disabled by default for these APIs. This can be changed with the expand-properties prefix. See Input Command Prefixes.

Sometimes commands have string arguments, that in turn are actually parsed by other components (e.g. filter strings with vf add) - in these cases, you you would have to double-escape in input.conf, but not with the array APIs.

For complex commands, consider using Named arguments instead, which should give slightly more compatibility. Some commands do not support named arguments and inherently take an array, though.