[LAU] Discovering file format

[F. Silvain]

Will Godfrey, Sep 19 2015:

> I have about 150 uncompressed audio files that I want to properly categorise,
> relatively quickly.
>
> The very oldest were recorded as 16bit 44.1k, more recent ones were 16bit, 48k
> and the latest ones 24bit 48k.
>
> I've moved them all into the same directory, so is there a simple script I can
> run that will scan this and list the name and details of each file?
>
> I can find plenty of programs that can change the format, but can't find any
> that will just tell me what it is :(

Hey hey,
This script will do the main work, you can replace the sndfile-info lines with exiftool lines, remember to change the grep expression.
***
#!/bin/bash
PID=$$
for F in *; do
 	sndfile-info "$F" &>audio-format-${PID}.log
 	SR=`cat audio-format-${PID}.log | grep -e "^Sample Rate" | awk '{ split($0,myarr,":"); print myarr[2] }'`
 	CHNLS=`cat audio-format-${PID}.log | grep -e "^Channels" | awk '{ split($0,myarr,":"); print myarr[2] }'`
 	BITS=`cat audio-format-${PID}.log | grep -e "Bit Width" | awk '{ split($0,myarr,":"); print myarr[2] }'`
 	echo "file: $F, samplerate: $SR, bit width: $BITS, channels $CHNLS"
 	# Insert conversion code here...
 	# Remember to put a semicolon after the last command in here!
done
rm audio-format-${PID}.log
***

I do like the exiftool output even better, since it tells you the format clearly, in case an extension is wrong and you'd need a different conversion tool for some outlandish format.

Good luck!
...

Ta-ta
----
Ffanci
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