20.3 winsound -- Sound-playing interface for Windows
Keywords: lib

# 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 (`0x25` through `0x7fff`). 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. New in version 1.5.3.

`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.

`SND_ALIAS`
  The sound parameter should be interpreted as a control panel sound association name.

`SND_LOOP`
  Play the sound repeatedly. The `SND_ASYNC` flag must also be used to avoid blocking.

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

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

`SND_NOSTOP`
  Do not interrupt sounds currently playing.

`SND_NOWAIT`
  Return immediately if the sound driver is busy.