FreeBSD Programming Tips

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FreeBSD Programming Tips

Making a Beep

As SysUtils.Beep has no effect on FreeBSD, I looked around for a way to make a beep and found nothing useful. So, I reinvented the wheel as follows:

    {$IFDEF FREEBSD}
    procedure FBSDbeep;
    var
      BProcess: TProcess;
      begin
        BProcess:= TProcess.Create(nil);
        BProcess.CommandLine := 'sh -c "echo xxxxxxx > /dev/dsp"';
        BProcess.Execute;
        BProcess.Free;
      end;
    {$ENDIF}

Note: /dev/dsp will automatically reroute to the sound device's correct device node (eg /dev/dsp0.0) using the dynamic devfs(5) clone handler.

Qualifications

• Ok, it's more of a burp than a beep, but it serves the purpose. If you're really fussy, you could send a real .wav file to /dev/dsp and play any musical note(s) you desire.

• If FreeBSD is using a GENERIC kernel, it will work.

• If FreeBSD is using a custom kernel and it's a desktop system, then it will most probably work because who doesn't want sound on their desktop system.

• If FreeBSD is using a custom kernel and is running on a server, it may not work. I don't see this as a significant defect in user applications which is its use case for my purposes.

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