Important

Development paused due to school. Planned improvements:

• Refactor code structure for clarity and maintainability
• Make playback thread-safe for asynchronous audio handling

c-wav-player: Custom WAV File Parser & Win32 Audio Player in C

c-wav-player is a lightweight, low-level WAV file parser and Windows audio player written in C. It reads standard RIFF/WAV headers, skips unknown metadata chunks (like smpl, LIST, etc.), extracts raw PCM audio data, and plays it via the Windows waveOut* API — all without relying on the high-level, limited PlaySound function.

Features

• WAV Parsing

  • Reads and validates standard RIFF/WAV headers
  • Supports 16-bit PCM, stereo and mono audio
  • Safely skips unknown chunks for robust parsing
  • Prints header info (channels, sample rate, bit depth, duration)

• Audio Playback

  • Non-blocking playback using a clean Sound* interface
  • Integrates with a UI/game loop
  • Handles real-time streaming of PCM data

• Why Not PlaySound?

  • PlaySound is blocking, limited, and can’t stream large or custom WAV files efficiently
  • waveOut* allows asynchronous playback, low-level control, and robust error handling

• Platform Notes

  • WAV parser is cross-platform and can be reused on any OS
  • Sound player (waveOut*) is Win32-only, so playback is Windows-specific

Usage Example

Wav Parser

#include "wav_parser.h"

int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
    wav_file_t file;
    wav_init_file(&file);

    if(!wav_parse_file("resources/sound/FlappyBird_Menu.wav", &file)) {
        return 1; //better err code comming soon
    }

    // Example: Access audio data via file.data / file.samples

    wav_free_file(&file);
    return 0;
}

Win32 Soundplayer(using the wav parser)

#include "win32/soundplayer.h"

int main(int argc, char const *argv[])
{
    Sound* snd = sound_init("resources/sound/bass-wiggle.wav");
    play_sound(snd);

    while(sound_is_playing(snd)) {
        draw_ui();
    }

    sound_release(snd);
    return 0;
}

WAV parser (header data display)

WAV header data

License

This project is open source and free to use under the MIT License.