[R-SIG-Mac] sound::setWavPlayer()

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On Thu, 28 Aug 2008, Hans-Jörg Bibiko wrote:

>
> On 27.08.2008, at 17:21, Hans-Jörg Bibiko wrote:
>
>> On 27.08.2008, at 17:06, Simon Urbanek wrote:
>> 
>>> To be precise to play an audio file all you do is
>>> [[[NSSound initWithContentsOfFile:fileName byReference:YES] autorelease] 
>>> play];
>>> Thats' all :)
>> 
>> Ah, you mean that the function play(A_SOUND_FILE) should be part of R's 
>> core code which implements it for a given platform.
>> This of course would be the best way.

No, because that just throws the problem onto R-core, including long-term 
maintenance, for what is a real minority interest.  It should be a 
user-maintained package.

> I thought about it a bit. For Mac it would be trivial, but for Windows and 
> Linux I do not know. They have to support many sound card drivers. For Linux 
> you have different window servers, and distributions.
> The next point once you have such a built-in function like playSoundFile(f) 
> how to control it, i.e how to stop it for instance; esp. for the case that 
> you're playing more than one sound file at a time (which works a Mac with 
> play very well).
>
> To use the approach to open a sound file by the default application is in 
> some sense better. On Mac it's easy, just type 'open FILE', for Windows this 
> works only in some cases. One could use 'start FILE' but 'start' is not an 
> executable it's a DOS command thus one could write a BAT file open.BAT à la 
> 'start %1'.

Please do your homework:  Windows R has long provided shell.exec() and as 
from R 2.8.0 will have open.exe (for use in shell scripts such as 
Rd2dvi.sh).

So all you need to do on Windows R is shell.exec("filename"), even easier 
than Simon's suggestion.

> The tricky point is Linux in that respect I believe.

What about all the other platforms R runs on -- FreeBSD, Solaris, AIX, 
IRIX, ...?

> I do not know any command which can do this. The Linux shell command 
> 'play' is not part of any distribution. This leads to a next problem. If 
> there would be a general solution to play a sound file using the default 
> app OK but if the user can set up the player to 'mplayer32.exe', or 
> 'play' etc. how to distinguish between a shell command, which could run 
> in the background (how to control it?), and a app based program like 
> 'Windows Media Player' or 'QuickTime' etc.?
>
>
> The only idea I have for now is to use a scripting language to write a 
> primitive audio player, and the only language which is installed by default 
> on all these platforms is Java. It shouldn't be that problem to write such a 
> JFrame jar.

But having a working Java is a problem.

> Cheers,
>
> --Hans

-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595