Audio File Library Development Notes
Thursday, 27 August 1998
Michael Pruett <michael@68k.org>

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Though I've done my best to address the issue, some byte ordering
issues may not be fully resolved.

Error handling code is now in place, as is code to handle any bit
depth between 1 and 32 bits.  Whether this code works properly in all
situations remains to be seen; but I've put the code through its
paces, and it's held up thus far.

Recognition of other audio files should include some of the following
file formats which I discovered through the `file' command on Linux:

[ 0 string,=.snd,"Sun/NeXT audio data:"]
[ 0 lelong,=6583086,"DEC audio data:"]
[> 8 string,=WAVE,", WAVE audio data"]
[ 0 belong,=779248125,"realaudio sound file"]
[> 8 string,=AIFF,", AIFF audio"]
[> 8 string,=AIFC,", AIFF-C compressed audio"]
[> 8 string,=SAMP,", SAMP sampled audio"]

I do not know what DEC audio data or SAMP sampled audio are.  I have
no plans to support RealAudio since it provides quite poor sound
quality (that is to say that it sucks a fat dick).

Compressed data formats are not supported.  I would like to add
support for the non-proprietary codecs sometime soon, but I have more
important issues to address first.

SGI's Audio File Library implements the following formats which I do
not:
	Berkeley/IRCAM/CARL SoundFile
	MPEG1 audio bitstream
	Sound Designer II
	Audio Visual Research
	Amiga IFF/8SVX
	SampleVision
	VOC
	SoundFont2
	Raw (headerless)

I'm planning to look into implementing BICSF.  The others don't seem
that interesting.  MPEG is plagued with patent issues, Sound Designer
II uses Macintosh resource forks, and I've never seen any of the
others.  If you'd like to nominate a sound file format for inclusion,
drop me a line.  I won't be able to do much without a solid reference,
though.

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This version of the Audio File Library has been tested under Irix 6.3
(using egcs 1.0.3a) and Red Hat Linux 5.0 for i386 (using gcc).
