snd_device_name_hint: Inconsistent output

[Peter Grasch <me@bedahr.org>]

Hi!

Today, I noticed that some devices (specifically, the "pulse" device,
but there might be others as well) do not show up in a call to
snd_device_name_hint when it is called for the first time within an
application.

I've managed to reproduce the problem on three different systems:
Get the source of a current version of aplay, compile it, run aplay -L
and store the output.
Then add another call to snd_device_name_hint in pcm_list to make it
look like this (leaking memory, but it doesn't matter for this
demonstration):
 315 static void pcm_list(void)
 316 {
 317         void **hints, **n;
 318         char *name, *descr, *descr1, *io;
 319         const char *filter;
 320 
 321         snd_device_name_hint(-1, "pcm", &hints);
 322         if (snd_device_name_hint(-1, "pcm", &hints) < 0)
 323                 return;
Compile and run this version of aplay and again store the output of
"aplay -L".
For me, the two outputs differ.

Please net me know how I can help to resolve this issue. Thanks.

Best regards,
Peter