[Python-Dev] Proposed changes to linuxaudiodev (original) (raw)

Guido van Rossum guido@python.org
Fri, 29 Nov 2002 20:37:11 -0500

I've been hacking sporadically on the linuxaudiodev module for the last couple of days. Initial results are in patch #645786 (www.python.org/sf/645786). The main goal of this patch is to make linuxaudiodev objects a thinner wrapper around the underlying OSS device driver, while still providing some highish-level convenience methods -- see my comments in the patch for details.

There's a slight theoretical risk of backwards incompatibility, though. Since this module has never been documented, and since its current behaviour is such that doing anything really funky is severely curtailed, I very much doubt this will be a problem. Is anyone doing anything with linuxaudiodev more sophisticated than playing silly beep sounds? Should I ask around on python-list to be sure I won't ruin anyone's day with this change? Oh yeah: someone noted in the CVS history that the module is misnamed. This is true; it should probably have been called ossaudiodev -- OSS is the current standard audio API used by Linux and, I think, various BSDs. It's also available for a bunch of commercial Unices.

I recommend that you simply check in your new code as ossaudiodev and we'll mark the linuxaudiodev module as deprecated.

--Guido van Rossum (home page: http://www.python.org/~guido/)