Question

I need to be able to programmatically read a WAV (or CAF) file and extract just the sample (audio) data as a byte array. What’s the easiest/quickest way to do this?

Answer 1

Assuming you’re on iOS or OS X, you want the AudioToolbox framework, specifically the APIs in AudioFile.h (or ExtAudioFile.h if you need to convert the audio data to another format on read.)

e.g.,

#include <AudioToolbox/AudioFile.h>

...

AudioFileID audioFile;
OSStatus err = AudioFileOpenURL(fileURL, kAudioFileReadPermission, 0, &audioFile);
// get the number of audio data bytes
UInt64 numBytes = 0;
UInt32 dataSize = sizeof(numBytes);
err = AudioFileGetProperty(audioFile, kAudioFilePropertyAudioDataByteCount, &dataSize, &numBytes);

unsigned char *audioBuffer = (unsigned char *)malloc(numBytes);

UInt32 toRead = numBytes;
UInt64 offset = 0;
unsigned char *pBuffer = audioBuffer;
while(true) {
    err = AudioFileReadBytes(audioFile, true, offset, &toRead, &pBuffer);
    if (kAudioFileEndOfFileError == err) {
        // cool, we're at the end of the file
        break;
    } else if (noErr != err) {
        // uh-oh, some error other than eof
        break;
    }
    // advance the next read offset
    offset += toRead;
    // advance the read buffer's pointer
    pBuffer += toRead;
    toRead = numBytes - offset;
    if (0 == toRead) {
        // got to the end of file but no eof err
        break;
    }
}

// Process audioBuffer ...

free(audioBuffer);