node-wav-player

The node-wav-player is a Node.js module which allows you to play a wav file on the host computer. It supports Windows 11, MacOS X, and some Linux distros.

This module can plays a wav file on:

• Windows
  • A wav file is played using SoundPlayer Class of .NET Framework through PowerShell. This module was tested on Windows 11.
• Mac OS X
  • A wav file is played using afplay command.
• Linux
  • A wav file is played using Alsa aplay command. This module was tested on:
    • Ubuntu Desktop
    • Fedora Workstation
    • Raspbian Strech with Desktop

Basically you don't have to install any additional libraries in most environments.

Though this module is intended to play a wav file, it probably can play some audio formats. That depends on the OS. For example, a mp3 file could be played on Mac OS X. But at least on Windows, the supported audio format is only wav.

Dependencies

• Tested on Node.js 20

Installation

$ cd ~
$ npm install node-wav-player

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Table of Contents

• Quick Start
• WavPlayer object
  • play() method
  • stop() method
• Release Note
• References
• License

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Quick Start

The code blow plays a wav file:

const player = require('node-wav-player');
player.play({
  path: './speech.wav',
}).then(() => {
  console.log('The wav file started to be played successfully.');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

That's it. If this code is run successfully, you will hear the audio from your computer.

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WavPlayer object

In order to use the node-wav-player, you have to load the node-wav-player module as follows:

const player = require('node-wav-player');

In the code snippet above, the variable player is a WavPlayer object. The WavPlayer object has methods as described in sections below.

play() method

The play() method plays a wav file specified to the path parameter. This method returns a Promise object.

This method takes a hash object containing the properties as follows:

Property	Type	Required	Description
path	String	Required	Path of a wav file (e.g., "./speech.wav")
loop	Boolean	Optional	If true, the wave file will be played repeatedly until the stop() method is called. The default value is false.
sync	Boolean	Optional	If true, this method calls the resove() after finishing to play the wav file. Otherwise, if false, this method calles the resolve() immediately after starting to play the wav file. The default value is false. If the loop is set to true, this parameter is ignored (i.e., this parameter is set to the default value false ).

If you want to wait for the end of the audio, you can set the sync to true as follows:

const player = require('node-wav-player');
player.play({
  path: './speech.wav',
  sync: true
}).then(() => {
  console.log('The wav file was played through.');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

stop() method

The stop() method stops playing the wav file. This method returns nothing. Note that this method is not asynchronous but synchronous.

The code blow starts to play a wav file. Then it stops playing the wav file in 1 second.

const player = require('node-wav-player');
player.play({
  path: './speech.wav',
}).then(() => {
  console.log('The wav file started to be played successfully.');
}).catch((error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

setTimeout(() => {
  player.stop();
  console.log('Stopped.')
}, 1000);

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Release Note

• v1.0.0 (2024-07-22)
  • Rewrote all codes in modern coding style using class, async, await, etc.
  • Added TypeScript definitions (Thanks to @Stephen-Hamilton-C, #11)
• v0.2.0 (2020-10-27)
  • Added error catching to spawn child process (Thanks to @Tmp2k, #7)
• v0.1.0 (2018-10-26)
  • Added the loop parameter to the play() method. (Thanks to @TmpR, #3)
• v0.0.2 (2018-10-21)
  • Fixed the bug on Win7 + PowerShell. (Thanks to @Joe-Kerr, #1, #2)
• v0.0.1 (2018-01-03)
  • First public release

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References

• Alsa aplay
• Microsoft MSDN .NET Framework Class Library - SoundPlayer Class

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License

The MIT License (MIT)