20.3 winsound -- Sound-playing interface for Windows

Availability: Windows.

New in version 1.5.2.

The winsound module provides access to the basic sound-playing machinery provided by Windows platforms. It includes two functions and several constants.

Beep(frequency, duration)
Beep the PC's speaker. The frequency parameter specifies frequency, in hertz, of the sound, and must be in the range 37 through 32,767. The duration parameter specifies the number of milliseconds the sound should last. If the system is not able to beep the speaker, RuntimeError is raised. Note: Under Windows 95 and 98, the Windows Beep() function exists but is useless (it ignores its arguments). In that case Python simulates it via direct port manipulation (added in version 2.1). It's unknown whether that will work on all systems. New in version 1.6.

PlaySound(sound, flags)
Call the underlying PlaySound() function from the Platform API. The sound parameter may be a filename, audio data as a string, or None. Its interpretation depends on the value of flags, which can be a bit-wise ORed combination of the constants described below. If the system indicates an error, RuntimeError is raised.

SND_FILENAME
The sound parameter is the name of a WAV file. Do not use with SND_ALIAS.

SND_ALIAS
The sound parameter is a sound association name from the registry. If the registry contains no such name, play the system default sound unless SND_NODEFAULT is also specified. If no default sound is registered, raise RuntimeError. Do not use with SND_FILENAME.

All Win32 systems support at least the following; most systems support many more:

PlaySound() name  Corresponding Control Panel Sound name 
'SystemAsterisk' Asterisk
'SystemExclamation' Exclamation
'SystemExit' Exit Windows
'SystemHand' Critical Stop
'SystemQuestion' Question

For example:

import winsound
# Play Windows exit sound.
winsound.PlaySound("SystemExit", winsound.SND_ALIAS)

# Probably play Windows default sound, if any is registered (because
# "*" probably isn't the registered name of any sound).
winsound.PlaySound("*", winsound.SND_ALIAS)

SND_LOOP
Play the sound repeatedly. The SND_ASYNC flag must also be used to avoid blocking. Cannot be used with SND_MEMORY.

SND_MEMORY
The sound parameter to PlaySound() is a memory image of a WAV file, as a string.

Note: This module does not support playing from a memory image asynchronously, so a combination of this flag and SND_ASYNC will raise RuntimeError.

SND_PURGE
Stop playing all instances of the specified sound.

SND_ASYNC
Return immediately, allowing sounds to play asynchronously.

SND_NODEFAULT
If the specified sound cannot be found, do not play the system default sound.

SND_NOSTOP
Do not interrupt sounds currently playing.

SND_NOWAIT
Return immediately if the sound driver is busy.

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