How to detect if there is front camera and if there is how to reach and use front camera?

Question

How to detect if there is a front camera and if there is how to reach and use front camera ?

Answer 1

If you are using API level 9 (Android 2.3) or above, you can do the following to calculate the index of the (first) front-facing camera:

int getFrontCameraId() {
    CameraInfo ci = new CameraInfo();
    for (int i = 0 ; i < Camera.getNumberOfCameras(); i++) {
        Camera.getCameraInfo(i, ci);
        if (ci.facing == CameraInfo.CAMERA_FACING_FRONT) return i;
    }
    return -1; // No front-facing camera found
}

you can then use the index for the Camera.open method, e.g.:

int index = getFrontCameraId();
if (index == -1) error();
Camera c = Camera.open(index);

To get the relevant camera.