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-- Libsndfile is a C library for reading and writing files containing sampled sound - (such as MS Windows WAV and the Apple/SGI AIFF format) through one standard - library interface. It is released in source code format under the - Gnu Lesser General Public License. -
- -- The library was written to compile and run on a Linux system but should compile - and run on just about any Unix (including MacOS X). - There are also pre-compiled binaries available for 32 and 64 bit windows. -
-- It was designed to handle both little-endian (such as WAV) and big-endian - (such as AIFF) data, and to compile and run correctly on little-endian (such as Intel - and DEC/Compaq Alpha) processor systems as well as big-endian processor systems such - as Motorola 68k, Power PC, MIPS and Sparc. - Hopefully the design of the library will also make it easy to extend for reading and - writing new sound file formats. -
- -- It has been compiled and tested (at one time or another) on the following systems: -
- -- At the moment, each new release is being tested on i386 Linux, x86_64 Linux, - PowerPC Linux, Win32 and Win64. -
- - - - -- libsndfile has the following main features : -
-- libsndfile has a comprehensive test suite so that each release is as bug free - as possible. - When new bugs are found, new tests are added to the test suite to ensure that - these bugs don't creep back into the code. - When new features are added, tests are added to the test suite to make sure that - these features continue to work correctly even when they are old features. -
-- The following table lists the file formats and encodings that libsndfile can read - and write. - The file formats are arranged across the top and encodings along the left - edge. -
-| - | Micro- soft WAV |
- SGI / Apple AIFF / AIFC |
- Sun / DEC / NeXT AU / SND |
- Header- less RAW |
- Paris Audio File PAF |
- Commo- dore Amiga IFF / SVX |
- Sphere Nist WAV |
- IRCAM SF |
- Creative VOC |
- Sound forge W64 |
- GNU Octave 2.0 MAT4 |
- GNU Octave 2.1 MAT5 |
- Portable Voice Format PVF |
- Fasttracker 2 XI |
- HMM Tool Kit HTK |
- Apple CAF |
- Sound Designer II SD2 |
- Free Lossless Audio Codec FLAC |
-
| Unsigned 8 bit PCM | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | -R/W | R/W | - | - | ||||||||||
| Signed 8 bit PCM | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | - | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -|||||||
| Signed 16 bit PCM | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | -|
| Signed 24 bit PCM | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | R/W | R/W | R/W | -||||||
| Signed 32 bit PCM | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | - | R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | |||||
| 32 bit float | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | R/W | R/W | R/W | - | R/W | - | ||||||
| 64 bit double | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | ||||||||
| u-law encoding | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | R/W | - | |||||||
| A-law encoding | -R/W | R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | R/W | R/W | -R/W | - | R/W | - | |||||||
| IMA ADPCM | -R/W | - | R/W | -- | - | |||||||||||||
| MS ADPCM | -R/W | - | R/W | - | - | |||||||||||||
| GSM 6.10 | -R/W | R/W | R/W | - | R/W | - | - | |||||||||||
| G721 ADPCM 32kbps | -R/W | R/W | - | - | - | |||||||||||||
| G723 ADPCM 24kbps | -R/W | - | - | - | ||||||||||||||
| G723 ADPCM 40kbps | -R/W | - | - | - | ||||||||||||||
| 12 bit DWVW | -R/W | R/W | - | - | - | |||||||||||||
| 16 bit DWVW | -R/W | R/W | - | - | - | |||||||||||||
| 24 bit DWVW | -R/W | R/W | - | - | - | |||||||||||||
| Ok Dialogic ADPCM | -R/W | - | - | - | ||||||||||||||
| 8 bit DPCM | -- | - | R/W | - | ||||||||||||||
| 16 bit DPCM | -- | - | R/W | - |
-From version 1.0.18, libsndfile also reads and writes - FLAC -and - Ogg/Vorbis. -
- - - -- Some of the file formats I am also interested in adding are: -
-- I have decided that I will not be adding support for MPEG Layer 3 (commonly - known as MP3) due to the patent issues surrounding this file format. - See - - the FAQ - for more. -
-- Other file formats may also be added on request. -
- - - - -- My first attempt at reading and writing WAV files was in 1990 or so under Windows - 3.1. - I started using Linux in early 1995 and contributed some code to the - wavplay - program. - That contributed code would eventually mutate into this library. - As one of my interests is Digital Signal Processing (DSP) I decided that as well as - reading data from an audio file in the native format (typically 16 bit short integers) - it would also be useful to be able to have the library do the conversion to floating - point numbers for DSP applications. - It then dawned on me that whatever file format (anything from 8 bit unsigned chars, - to 32 bit floating point numbers) the library should be able to convert the data to - whatever format the library user wishes to use it in. - For example, in a sound playback program, the library caller typically wants the sound - data in 16 bit short integers to dump into a sound card even though the data in the - file may be 32 bit floating point numbers (ie Microsoft's WAVE_FORMAT_IEEE_FLOAT - format). - Another example would be someone doing speech recognition research who has recorded - some speech as a 16 bit WAV file but wants to process it as double precision floating - point numbers. -
-- Here is the release history for libsndfile : -
-- libsndfile is released under the terms of the GNU Lesser General Public License, - of which there are two versions; - version 2.1 - and - version 3. - To maximise the compatibility of libsndfile, the user may choose to use libsndfile - under either of the above two licenses. - You can also read a simple explanation of the ideas behind the GPL and the LGPL - here. -
-- You can use libsndfile with - Free Software, - Open Source, - proprietary, shareware or other closed source applications as long as libsndfile - is used as a dynamically loaded library and you abide by a small number of other - conditions (read the LGPL for more info). - With applications released under the GNU GPL you can also use libsndfile statically - linked to your application. -
-- I would like to see libsndfile used as widely as possible but I would prefer it - if you released software that uses libsndfile as - Free Software - or - Open Source. - However, if you put in a great deal of effort building a significant application - which simply uses libsndfile for file I/O, then I have no problem with you releasing - that as closed source and charging as much money as you want for it as long as you - abide by the license. -
- - -- Here is the latest version. It is available in the following formats: -
--The Win32 installer was compiled for Windows XP but should also work on Windows -2000, Vista and Windows 7. -
- -- Pre-release versions of libsndfile are available - here - and are announced on the - libsndfile-devel - mailing list. -
- - -- The latest version of this document can be found - here. -
--Author : - - Erik de Castro Lopo -
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