# 14.4 `sunau` -- Read and write Sun AU files

The `sunau` module provides a convenient interface to the Sun AU sound format. Note that this module is interface-compatible with the modules `aifc` and `wave`.

An audio file consists of a header followed by the data. The fields of the header are:

Field | Contents
--- | ---
magic word | The four bytes "`.snd`".
header size | Size of the header, including info, in bytes.
data size | Physical size of the data, in bytes.
encoding | Indicates how the audio samples are encoded.
sample rate | The sampling rate.
# of channels | The number of channels in the samples.
info | ASCII string giving a description of the audio file (padded with null bytes).

Apart from the info field, all header fields are 4 bytes in size. They are all 32-bit unsigned integers encoded in big-endian byte order.

The `sunau` module defines the following functions:

`open` (file, mode)
  If file is a string, open the file by that name, otherwise treat it as a seekable file-like object. mode can be any of
  `'r'`
    Read only mode.
  `'w'`
    Write only mode.
  Note that it does not allow read/write files.

  A mode of `'r'` returns a `AU_read` object, while a mode of `'w'` or `'wb'` returns a `AU_write` object.

`openfp` (file, mode)
  A synonym for `open`, maintained for backwards compatibility.

The `sunau` module defines the following exception:

`Error`
  An error raised when something is impossible because of Sun AU specs or implementation deficiency.

The `sunau` module defines the following data items:

`AUDIO_FILE_MAGIC`
  An integer every valid Sun AU file begins with, stored in big-endian form. This is the string "`.snd`" interpreted as an integer.

`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_MULAW_8`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_LINEAR_8`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_LINEAR_16`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_LINEAR_24`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_LINEAR_32`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_ALAW_8`
  Values of the encoding field from the AU header which are supported by this module.

`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_FLOAT`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_DOUBLE`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_ADPCM_G721`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_ADPCM_G722`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_ADPCM_G723_3`
`AUDIO_FILE_ENCODING_ADPCM_G723_5`
  Additional known values of the encoding field from the AU header, but which are not supported by this module.

Subsections

- 14.4.1 AU_read Objects
- 14.4.2 AU_write Objects