How to set the output audio device in modern Ubuntu-derivatives

set-audio

#! /usr/bin/python3
# Note: use wpctl set-default <number> to use this information
from subprocess import check_output
import os
import re
import sys
'''
pw-cli ls | awk '/^\s*id/{ id=$2; sub(",", "", id) }/\s*node.description/{ name=substr($0, index($0, "=")+2); gsub("\"", "", name) } /\s*media.class.*Audio.Sink/ { print( id " " name ) }'
echo
echo use wpctl set-default NUMBER to use this information
'''


device_to_set = None
if len(sys.argv) > 1:
    device_to_set = sys.argv[1]
    
audio_info = check_output(['pw-cli', 'ls'], text=True).splitlines()
audio_id = None
node_description = None
for l in audio_info:
    m = re.match(r"^\s*id\s*([0-9]+),.*$", l)
    if m:
        audio_id = m.group(1)
    if l.strip().lower().startswith('node.description'):
        node_description = l.strip().split("=")[1].strip()
    if re.search('media.class.*Audio.Sink', l):
        if device_to_set is None:
            print(audio_id, node_description)
        else:
            if device_to_set.lower() in node_description.lower():
                print(f"setting default output to: {node_description} ({audio_id})")
                os.system(f"wpctl set-default {audio_id}")