This function and the semantics of SDL alpha blending have changed since version 1\&.1\&.4\&. Up until version 1\&.1\&.5, an alpha value of 0 was considered opaque and a value of 255 was considered transparent\&. This has now been inverted: 0 (\fBSDL_ALPHA_TRANSPARENT\fP) is now considered transparent and 255 (\fBSDL_ALPHA_OPAQUE\fP) is now considered opaque\&.
The\fBsurface\fR parameter specifies which surface whose alpha attributes you wish to adjust\&. \fBflags\fR is used to specify whether alpha blending should be used (\fBSDL_SRCALPHA\fP) and whether the surface should use RLE acceleration for blitting (\fBSDL_RLEACCEL\fP)\&. \fBflags\fR can be an OR\&'d combination of these two options, one of these options or 0\&. If \fBSDL_SRCALPHA\fP is not passed as a flag then all alpha information is ignored when blitting the surface\&. The \fBalpha\fR parameter is the per-surface alpha value; a surface need not have an alpha channel to use per-surface alpha and blitting can still be accelerated with \fBSDL_RLEACCEL\fP\&.
The source is alpha-blended with the destination using the per-surface alpha value\&. If \fBSDL_SRCCOLORKEY\fP is set, only the pixels not matching the colorkey value are copied\&. The alpha channel of the copied pixels is set to opaque\&.
The RGB data is copied from the source and the alpha value of the copied pixels is set to opaque\&. If \fBSDL_SRCCOLORKEY\fP is set, only the pixels not matching the colorkey value are copied\&.
The source is alpha-blended with the destination using the source alpha channel\&. The alpha channel in the destination surface is left untouched\&. \fBSDL_SRCCOLORKEY\fP is ignored\&.
.TP20
RGBA->RGBA without \fBSDL_SRCALPHA\fP
The RGBA data is copied to the destination surface\&. If \fBSDL_SRCCOLORKEY\fP is set, only the pixels not matching the colorkey value are copied\&.
.TP20
RGB->RGB with \fBSDL_SRCALPHA\fP
The source is alpha-blended with the destination using the per-surface alpha value\&. If \fBSDL_SRCCOLORKEY\fP is set, only the pixels not matching the colorkey value are copied\&.
.TP20
RGB->RGB without \fBSDL_SRCALPHA\fP
The RGB data is copied from the source\&. If \fBSDL_SRCCOLORKEY\fP is set, only the pixels not matching the colorkey value are copied\&.
Note that RGBA->RGBA blits (with SDL_SRCALPHA set) keep the alpha of the destination surface\&. This means that you cannot compose two arbitrary RGBA surfaces this way and get the result you would expect from "overlaying" them; the destination alpha will work as a mask\&.
.PP
Also note that per-pixel and per-surface alpha cannot be combined; the per-pixel alpha is always used if available
.RE
.SH"RETURN VALUE"
.PP
This function returns \fB0\fR, or \fB-1\fR if there was an error\&.