how do you stop a sequence of sounds created with the Sound command?

[madscijr]

Yeah, QB64 never did bring the SOUND(0, 0) along from QBasic. I mean if you are desperate, you could close the program and shell another instance, using a file to direct the new instance to a different part of the program. That file could also hold and put back any variables into the new instance.

If you run the code, be sure you understand the first line about the file it creates and what you have to name the file or change the SHELL name to get it to work when it gets compiled. Here's what I'm talking about...

Code: (Select All)

' Caution, this makes a file called blahblahblah.tmp. ALSO IMPORTANT: You must name and compile this file as untitled(9). or change to another name and use that name in the SHELL call.

IF _FILEEXISTS("blahblahblah.tmp") THEN KILL "blahblahblah.tmp": GOTO 101

' Q: how do you stop a sound playing with the Sound command?

CONST FALSE = 0
CONST TRUE = NOT FALSE

DIM iLoop AS INTEGER
DIM in$
DIM bQuit AS INTEGER

DO
    bQuit = FALSE
    CLS
    PRINT "Start playing some sounds..."

    ' Quick ascending tone signals that we are starting
    FOR iLoop = 400 TO 500 STEP 5: SOUND iLoop, .3: NEXT iLoop

    ' Middle sound (goes on a long time, how to turn it off?)
    FOR iLoop = 1 TO 2000
        SOUND 25000 - (iLoop * 10), .1
    NEXT iLoop

    ' Quick descending tone signals that we're done
    FOR iLoop = 500 TO 400 STEP -5: SOUND iLoop, .3: NEXT iLoop

    PRINT "Finished generating sound."
    PRINT
    PRINT "Now, how do we stop it playing or clear the SOUND queue?"
    PRINT
    PRINT "WARNING: "
    PRINT "Options 1-3 can cause program to freeze or act strangely!"
    PRINT

    PRINT "1. Try stopping the sound with SOUND 0,0"
    PRINT "2. Try stopping the sound with SOUND 37,1"
    PRINT "3. Try stopping the sound with BEEP"
    PRINT "4. Play it again"
    PRINT "5. Quit"
    PRINT

    DO
        in$ = INKEY$
        IF in$ = "1" THEN
            OPEN "blahblahblah.tmp" FOR APPEND AS #1: CLOSE #1
            SHELL _DONTWAIT "untitled(9).exe"
            STOP
        ELSEIF in$ = "2" THEN
            SOUND 37, 1
        ELSEIF in$ = "3" THEN
            BEEP
            END
        ELSEIF in$ = "4" THEN
            bQuit = FALSE: EXIT DO
        ELSEIF in$ = "5" OR in$ = "q" THEN
            bQuit = TRUE: EXIT DO
        END IF
    LOOP

    IF bQuit = TRUE THEN EXIT DO
LOOP

101
PRINT "Ha! It worked!"
SLEEP

So the part that sucks is you momentarily lose your program window. I mean the whole approach sucks, but losing the window really sucks. Now if @Spriggsy swings by, he might know of a way using Windows API to kill the sound, but if you are on Linux, that won't help you.

@Dav works a lot with sound, but I don't know if he also works on Linux, or just Windows.

Hopefully someone else has a better idea than mine. It will work, but it's ugly.

Pete

Thanks for your reply! 

Oy vey, the workaround you mention would not work for me, because I just want to stop the sound during gameplay in a video game, so we cannot kill the window (not to mention that would be the biggest kludge ever, LoL!)

I think the solution for me will be to simply record the audio from that code as a sound file and play it back with _SNDPLAY. It's OK if it's a static WAV file, the sound parameters don't vary. 

I do think finally adding SOUND(0, 0) to QB64 would make SOUND more useful in a lot of cases. I'm not sure how hard it would be - all that needs to be done is when there's a SOUND(0, 0) command, just shut down whatever audio is queued for SOUND...

Thanks again!