How to play sound in java?

Question

I am designing a simple timer application, but I've got some troubles with playing sound.

Here is my code

public class Timer {

    private static int time = 0;

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Scanner scanner = new Scanner(System.in);

        System.out.println("Type the values");
        System.out.print("Hours   :  ");
        int hours = scanner.nextInt();
        System.out.print("Minutes :  ");
        int minutes = scanner.nextInt();
        System.out.print("Seconds :  ");
        int seconds = scanner.nextInt();

        time = hours * 3600 + minutes * 60 + seconds;

        new Thread() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try {
                    while (time != 0) {
                        time--;
                        sleep(1000);
                    }
                    System.out.println("Time elapsed");
                    URL url = Timer.class.getResource("Timer.wav");
                    AudioInputStream audioIn = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(url);
                    Clip clip = AudioSystem.getClip();
                    clip.open(audioIn);
                    clip.start();
                } catch (InterruptedException | UnsupportedAudioFileException | IOException | LineUnavailableException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                }
            }
        }.start();

        System.out.println("Timer started");

    }
}

And here is my project structure. Now the problem is that application does not give me any exception, though it does not play the sound. What's wrong?

Answer 1

This is actually a multi-threading issue.

The problem is that you start the clip, but then terminate your program without giving it a chance to play to it's end. The Clip.start() method is not a blocking operation, which means it does not wait, but rather starts a new daemon thread to play the sound, a daemon thread which is killed once the program exits the main method.

Here is a code example from my other answer, for playing an audio file using a Clip. Notice the way I calculate the sound duration and then sleep() to let it play.

import java.io.File;
import java.io.IOException;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioFormat;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioInputStream;
import javax.sound.sampled.AudioSystem;
import javax.sound.sampled.Clip;
import javax.sound.sampled.LineUnavailableException;
import javax.sound.sampled.UnsupportedAudioFileException;

public class PlaySound {
    private static boolean tryToInterruptSound = false;
    private static long mainTimeOut = 3000;
    private static long startTime = System.currentTimeMillis();

    public static synchronized Thread playSound(final File file) {

        Thread soundThread = new Thread() {
            @Override
            public void run() {
                try{
                    Clip clip = null;
                    AudioInputStream inputStream = null;
                    clip = AudioSystem.getClip();
                    inputStream = AudioSystem.getAudioInputStream(file);
                    AudioFormat format = inputStream.getFormat();
                    long audioFileLength = file.length();
                    int frameSize = format.getFrameSize();
                    float frameRate = format.getFrameRate();
                    long durationInMiliSeconds = 
                            (long) (((float)audioFileLength / (frameSize * frameRate)) * 1000);

                    clip.open(inputStream);
                    clip.start();
                    System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": sound started playing!");
                    Thread.sleep(durationInMiliSeconds);
                    while (true) {
                        if (!clip.isActive()) {
                            System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": sound got to it's end!");
                            break;
                        }
                        long fPos = (long)(clip.getMicrosecondPosition() / 1000);
                        long left = durationInMiliSeconds - fPos;
                        System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": time left: " + left);
                        if (left > 0) Thread.sleep(left);
                    }
                    clip.stop();  
                    System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": sound stoped");
                    clip.close();
                    inputStream.close();
                } catch (LineUnavailableException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } catch (UnsupportedAudioFileException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } catch (IOException e) {
                    e.printStackTrace();
                } catch (InterruptedException e) {
                    System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": sound interrupted while playing.");
                }
            }
        };
        soundThread.setDaemon(true);
        soundThread.start();
        return soundThread;
    }

    public static void main(String[] args) {
        Thread soundThread = playSound(new File("C:\\Booboo.wav"));
        System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": playSound returned, keep running the code");
        try {   
            Thread.sleep(mainTimeOut );
        } catch (InterruptedException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        }
        if (tryToInterruptSound) {
            try {   
                soundThread.interrupt();
                Thread.sleep(1); 
                // Sleep in order to let the interruption handling end before
                // exiting the program (else the interruption could be handled
                // after the main thread ends!).
            } catch (Exception e) {
                e.printStackTrace();
            }
        }
        System.out.println("" + (System.currentTimeMillis() - startTime) + ": End of main thread; exiting program " + 
                (soundThread.isAlive() ? "killing the sound deamon thread" : ""));
    }
}