the libao driver

[Hynek Hanke]

On 14.9.2010 14:34, Chris Brannon wrote:
> There's a serious deficiency in the libao library: it doesn't have
> any sort of stop function.
>    

Well, this seems to be a bigger problem. I don't understand
though why did libao decide not to implement stop(), given
that most of its backends support it. Perhaps because implementing
stop() requires an asynchronous API and/or threading.

I think it would still make sense to try implementing stop()
in libao and then using libao for sound output in Speech Dispatcher.

Would somebody like to raise this concern on the libao
mailing list?

I'm not sure how one could rely on the size of the buffer for stopping,
given that for example in PA, it changes dynamically.  Sending
less data than is available results in PA doing very sub-optimal
processing. And this is true not only in our very high latency
requirements, but with very ordinary things, like playing music.
So I think libao really needs a stop() function, unless I'm missing
something.

Best regards,
Hynek Hanke