JoelStrait.com: Blog - WaveFile 0.4.0 Released

WaveFile 0.4.0 Released

January 1, 2012

We ended 2011 right, and now it’s time to get 2012 off on the correct foot as well. Version 0.4.0 of the WaveFile gem has been released today. It’s a major improvement, and features a completely new streaming API. Here are some of the improvements that this allows, courtesy of the README:

Reduced memory consumption, due to not having to load the entire file into memory. In practice, this allows the gem to read/write files that previously would have been prohibitively large.
Better performance for large files, for the same reason as above.
Ability to progressively append data to the end of a file, instead of writing the entire file at once.
Ability to easily read and write data in an arbitrary format, regardless of the file’s native format. For example, you can transparently read data out of a 16-bit stereo file as 8-bit mono.
Automatic file management, similar to how IO.open() works. It’s easy to continually read the sample data from a file, passing each buffer to a block, and have the file automatically close when there is no more data left.

Other improvements include:

Ability to query format metadata of files without opening them, even for formats that WaveFile can’t read or write.
Support for reading and writing 32-bit PCM files.

Note that the API from prior versions is obsolete. Any existing programs that previously used WaveFile will need to be re-written. Taking one step back to take two steps forward, etc. Also, support for reading or writing sample data as floating point has been removed as well. It’s possible it will be added back at a later date.

Joel Strait

WaveFile 0.4.0 Released