###### (This is the legacy documentation for SDL2, the previous stable version; [SDL3](https://wiki.libsdl.org/SDL3/) is the current stable version.)
# SDL_GetNumAudioDevices

Get the number of built-in audio devices.

## Header File

Defined in [SDL_audio.h](https://github.com/libsdl-org/SDL/blob/SDL2/include/SDL_audio.h)

## Syntax

```c
int SDL_GetNumAudioDevices(int iscapture);
```

## Function Parameters

|     |               |                                                                          |
| --- | ------------- | ------------------------------------------------------------------------ |
| int | **iscapture** | zero to request playback devices, non-zero to request recording devices. |

## Return Value

(int) Returns the number of available devices exposed by the current driver
or -1 if an explicit list of devices can't be determined. A return value of
-1 does not necessarily mean an error condition.

## Remarks

This function is only valid after successfully initializing the audio
subsystem.

Note that audio capture support is not implemented as of SDL 2.0.4, so the
`iscapture` parameter is for future expansion and should always be zero for
now.

This function will return -1 if an explicit list of devices can't be
determined. Returning -1 is not an error. For example, if SDL is set up to
talk to a remote audio server, it can't list every one available on the
Internet, but it will still allow a specific host to be specified in
[SDL_OpenAudioDevice](SDL_OpenAudioDevice)().

In many common cases, when this function returns a value <= 0, it can still
successfully open the default device (NULL for first argument of
[SDL_OpenAudioDevice](SDL_OpenAudioDevice)()).

This function may trigger a complete redetect of available hardware. It
should not be called for each iteration of a loop, but rather once at the
start of a loop:

```c
// Don't do this:
for (int i = 0; i < SDL_GetNumAudioDevices(0); i++)

// do this instead:
const int count = SDL_GetNumAudioDevices(0);
for (int i = 0; i < count; ++i) { do_something_here(); }
```

## Version

This function is available since SDL 2.0.0.

## See Also

- [SDL_GetAudioDeviceName](SDL_GetAudioDeviceName)
- [SDL_OpenAudioDevice](SDL_OpenAudioDevice)

----
[CategoryAPI](CategoryAPI), [CategoryAPIFunction](CategoryAPIFunction), [CategoryAudio](CategoryAudio)