sfinfo(1)

sfinfo1

Display information about audio files

Usage

sfinfo [options] audio files ...

Overview

sfinfo prints information about the specified audio files, including file format, sample rate, duration, and audio data format.

By default sfinfo displays information in a longer, multi-line format; specifying the --short or -s option produces a short, single-line summary.

Any files which are not recognized as valid audio files will be ignored unless the --reporterror or -r option is given. The file formats currently supported by sfinfo are AIFF, AIFF-C, NeXT/Sun .snd/.au, WAVE, Berkeley/IRCAM/CARL Sound File, AVR, Amiga IFF/8SVX, Sample Vision, Creative Voice File, NIST SPHERE, and Core Audio Format.

Options

--short, -s

Print short single-line summary of each recognized audio file.

--reporterror, -r

Print an error message if any of the specified files are not recognized as valid audio files.

--help, -h

Print help message.

--version, -v

Print version information.

Examples

Display summary of an audio file:

% sfinfo drum.aiff
File Name      drum.aiff
File Format    Audio Interchange File Format (aiff)
Data Format    16-bit integer (2's complement, big endian)
Audio Data     1569972 bytes begins at offset 54 (36 hex)
               2 channels, 392493 frames
Sampling Rate  44100.00 Hz
Duration       8.900 seconds

List all recognized audio files in the current directory using the short output format:

% sfinfo -s *
    9.60s 44100.00 aiff  1ch 16b -- bass.aiff
    8.90s 44100.00 aiff  2ch 16b -- drum.aiff

Releases

13 releases since Debian 3.0 (Woody); the text changed 2 times.

  1. 3.0–4.0
  2. 5.0–13
  3. Arch

--help since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; --reporterror since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; --short since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; --version since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; -h since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; -r since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; -s since Arch Linux 2026-11-01; -v since Arch Linux 2026-11-01.

Author

Michael Pruett <[email protected]>

From audiofile 0.3.6-12 in Arch Linux 2026-11-01. Parsed by carta from the page's man source.