How to start the preferred audio player via the command line?

Question

My bash script should call the user preferred audio player instead of vlc or mplayer directly. How can I call it from bash? I assume something like

audio-player --play music.mp3

Answer 1

Try to use XDG open, it should open file with default application:

xdg-open music.mp3

From xdg-open man-page:

NAME

   xdg-open - opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application

SYNOPSIS

   xdg-open {file | URL}

   xdg-open {--help | --manual | --version}

DESCRIPTION

   xdg-open opens a file or URL in the user's preferred application. If a
   URL is provided the URL will be opened in the user's preferred web
   browser. If a file is provided the file will be opened in the preferred
   application for files of that type. xdg-open supports file, ftp, http
   and https URLs.

   xdg-open is for use inside a desktop session only. It is not
   recommended to use xdg-open as root.