Using PlaySound with a Resource Identifier

To play a sound stored as a resource, use the PlaySound function. Although you can use sndPlaySound to play a resource sound, you must find, load, lock, unlock, and free the resource; in contrast, PlaySound completes these tasks in a single line of code.

    To include a .wav file as a resource in an application

• Add the following entry to the application resource script (.rc) file.

  soundName WAVE \sounds\bells.wav
  

  The name soundName is a placeholder for a name you supply to refer to the wave resource sound. Wave resources are loaded and accessed like other application-defined Windows resources.

The following code example shows how to use the PlaySound function to play the wave resource sound.

PlaySound (TEXT("soundName"), hInst, SND_RESOURCE | SND_ASYNC);

In contrast, the following code example shows how to use the sndPlaySound function to play a wave resource sound.

BOOL PlayResource (LPTSTR lpName) 
{ 
    BOOL bRtn; 
    LPTSTR lpRes; 
    HANDLE hResInfo, hRes; 

    // Find the wave resource. 
    hResInfo = FindResource (hInst, lpName, "WAVE"); 

    if (hResInfo == NULL) 
      return FALSE; 

    // Load the wave resource. 
    hRes = LoadResource (hInst, hResInfo); 

    if (hRes == NULL) 
      return FALSE; 

    // Lock the wave resource and play it. 
    lpRes = LockResource (hRes);
  
    if (lpRes != NULL) 
  { 
      bRtn = sndPlaySound (lpRes, SND_MEMORY | SND_SYNC | SND_NODEFAULT); 
      UnlockResource (hRes); 
    } 
    else 
      bRtn = 0; 

    // Free the wave resource and return success or failure. 
    FreeResource (hRes); 

    return bRtn; 
}

To play a wave resource sound by using sndPlaySound, pass the function a pointer to a string containing the resource name, as shown in the following code example.

PlayResource (TEXT("soundName"));