Using mmcli instead of other components

Updated: April 19, 2023

The mmcli utility helps you to learn the APIs of multimedia libraries and services before you begin writing applications that will use them. This learning activity can help you design and implement the applications you intend to release to customers.

When to use mmcli

You should use mmcli if you want to:
  • exercise the APIs of multimedia components in an interactive session
  • write and execute test scripts to assess the functionality and performance of multimedia components
  • log all media commands and their results so that you can review the command history and analyze any errors

When to use other components directly

You shouldn't use mmcli, but instead directly call the APIs of multimedia components if you want to:
  • write production-level media applications that don't depend on a helper utility to forward commands to platform services
  • optimize media operations by avoiding the mmcli overhead of parsing input text and logging errors
  • customize how you handle errors or events reported by a particular library or service