[linux-audio-dev] finding info on sound cards

For a couple of projects I need to be able to find out information about the sound cards installed on the system, but as I need to run on lots of different systems I need it to be fairly portable. Before I start writing something to do it, I figured I'd check to see if there's anything already in progress that can do the same. What I need is to be able to get a list of sound cards on the system, and information about them (like the names), and then to get a list of the channels each sound card has and information on them (current level, name (if it has one), if it's a record source etc), and finally to be able to control the channels, change the level, change if it's the current record source. Is there a library that can do this all available anywhere, or will I have to write it myself? Would it be a useful thing to have in a library? iain -- "The 'developed' nations gave to the 'free market' the status of a god, sacrificing to it their farmers, farmlands, and communities, their forests, wetlands and praries, their ecosystems and watersheds. They had accepted universal pollution and global warming as normal costs of doing buisness." - Wendell Berry