1 

     2 :mod:`sndhdr` --- Determine type of sound file

     3 ==============================================

     4 

     5 .. module:: sndhdr

     6    :synopsis: Determine type of a sound file.

     7 .. sectionauthor:: Fred L. Drake, Jr. <fdrake@acm.org>

     8 .. Based on comments in the module source file.

     9 

    10 .. index::

    11    single: A-LAW

    12    single: u-LAW

    13 

    14 The :mod:`sndhdr` provides utility functions which attempt to determine the type

    15 of sound data which is in a file.  When these functions are able to determine

    16 what type of sound data is stored in a file, they return a tuple ``(type,

    17 sampling_rate, channels, frames, bits_per_sample)``.  The value for *type*

    18 indicates the data type and will be one of the strings ``'aifc'``, ``'aiff'``,

    19 ``'au'``, ``'hcom'``, ``'sndr'``, ``'sndt'``, ``'voc'``, ``'wav'``, ``'8svx'``,

    20 ``'sb'``, ``'ub'``, or ``'ul'``.  The *sampling_rate* will be either the actual

    21 value or ``0`` if unknown or difficult to decode.  Similarly, *channels* will be

    22 either the number of channels or ``0`` if it cannot be determined or if the

    23 value is difficult to decode.  The value for *frames* will be either the number

    24 of frames or ``-1``.  The last item in the tuple, *bits_per_sample*, will either

    25 be the sample size in bits or ``'A'`` for A-LAW or ``'U'`` for u-LAW.

    26 

    27 

    28 .. function:: what(filename)

    29 

    30    Determines the type of sound data stored in the file *filename* using

    31    :func:`whathdr`.  If it succeeds, returns a tuple as described above, otherwise

    32    ``None`` is returned.

    33 

    34 

    35 .. function:: whathdr(filename)

    36 

    37    Determines the type of sound data stored in a file based on the file  header.

    38    The name of the file is given by *filename*.  This function returns a tuple as

    39    described above on success, or ``None``.

    40