Play a Sound with Python

Claudiu picture Claudiu · Nov 21, 2008 · Viewed 444.4k times · Source

What's the easiest way to play a sound file (.wav) in Python? By easiest I mean both most platform independent and requiring the least dependencies. pygame is certainly an option, but it seems overkill for just sound.

Answer

orestis picture orestis · Nov 22, 2008

For Windows, you can use winsound. It's built in

import winsound

winsound.PlaySound('sound.wav', winsound.SND_FILENAME)

You should be able to use ossaudiodev for linux:

from wave import open as waveOpen
from ossaudiodev import open as ossOpen
s = waveOpen('tada.wav','rb')
(nc,sw,fr,nf,comptype, compname) = s.getparams( )
dsp = ossOpen('/dev/dsp','w')
try:
  from ossaudiodev import AFMT_S16_NE
except ImportError:
  from sys import byteorder
  if byteorder == "little":
    AFMT_S16_NE = ossaudiodev.AFMT_S16_LE
  else:
    AFMT_S16_NE = ossaudiodev.AFMT_S16_BE
dsp.setparameters(AFMT_S16_NE, nc, fr)
data = s.readframes(nf)
s.close()
dsp.write(data)
dsp.close()

(Credit for ossaudiodev: Bill Dandreta http://mail.python.org/pipermail/python-list/2004-October/288905.html)