Question

In the uncompressed situation I know I need to read the wav header, pull out the number of channels, bits, and sample rate and work it out from there: (channels) * (bits) * (samples/s) * (seconds) = (filesize)

Is there a simpler way – a free library, or something in the .net framework perhaps?

How would I do this if the .wav file is compressed (with the mpeg codec for example)?

Answer 1

You may consider using the mciSendString(…) function (error checking is omitted for clarity):

using System; using System.Text; using System.Runtime.InteropServices;  namespace Sound {     public static class SoundInfo     {         [DllImport('winmm.dll')]         private static extern uint mciSendString(             string command,             StringBuilder returnValue,             int returnLength,             IntPtr winHandle);          public static int GetSoundLength(string fileName)         {             StringBuilder lengthBuf = new StringBuilder(32);              mciSendString(string.Format('open \'{0}\' type waveaudio alias wave', fileName), null, 0, IntPtr.Zero);             mciSendString('status wave length', lengthBuf, lengthBuf.Capacity, IntPtr.Zero);             mciSendString('close wave', null, 0, IntPtr.Zero);              int length = 0;             int.TryParse(lengthBuf.ToString(), out length);              return length;         }     } }