---
name: "sd-device"
section: "3"
platform: "linux"
package: "systemd-libs"
version: "262.1-1"
release: "Arch Linux 2026-11-01"
platforms: ["linux"]
url: "https://new.carta.tech/sd-device"
---

# sd-device(3)

API for enumerating and introspecting local devices

## NAME

sd-device - API for enumerating and introspecting local devices

## SYNOPSIS

```
#include <systemd/sd-device.h>
```

**pkg-config --cflags --libs libsystemd**

## DESCRIPTION

sd-device.h is part of [**libsystemd**(3)](/libsystemd/3.md) and provides an API to introspect and enumerate devices on the local system. It provides a programmatic interface to the database of devices and their properties managed by [**systemd-udevd.service**(8)](/systemd-udevd.service/8.md). This API is a replacement for [**libudev**(3)](/libudev/3.md) and libudev.h.

See

[**sd\_device\_get\_syspath**(3)](/sd_device_get_syspath/3.md),

[**sd\_device\_ref**(3)](/sd_device_ref/3.md)

for more information about the functions available.

## NOTES

Functions described here are available as a shared library, which can be compiled against and linked to with the **libsystemd** [**pkg-config**(1)](/pkg-config/1.md) file.

The code described here uses [**getenv**(3)](/getenv/3.md), which is declared to be not multi-thread-safe. This means that the code calling the functions described here must not call [**setenv**(3)](/setenv/3.md) from a parallel thread. It is recommended to only do calls to **setenv()** from an early phase of the program when no other threads have been started.

## SEE ALSO

[**systemd**(1)](/systemd/1.md), [**sd-event**(3)](/sd-event/3.md), [**udevadm**(8)](/udevadm/8.md)