ossaudiodev.open()

ossaudiodev.open(mode) ossaudiodev.open(device, mode)

Open an audio device and return an OSS audio device object. This object supports many file-like methods, such as read(), write(), and fileno() (although there are subtle differences between conventional Unix read/write semantics and those of OSS audio devices). It also supports a number of audio-specific methods; see below for the complete list of methods.

device is the audio device filename to use. If it is not specified, this module first looks in the environment variable AUDIODEV for a device to use. If not found, it falls back to /dev/dsp.

mode is one of 'r' for read-only (record) access, 'w' for write-only (playback) access and 'rw' for both. Since many sound cards only allow one process to have the recorder or player open at a time, it is a good idea to open the device only for the activity needed. Further, some sound cards are half-duplex: they can be opened for reading or writing, but not both at once.

Note the unusual calling syntax: the first argument is optional, and the second is required. This is a historical artifact for compatibility with the older linuxaudiodev module which ossaudiodev supersedes.