How to play mp3 in python without infinite loop?

Question

I am writing a program which reads a string, then convert it into speech and play it as mp3. But the program does not play the music. I have checked and find out that the mp3 file is created and can be played with standard mp3 players but not the script. I am using gtts module (for converting text to speech) and vlc module (to play mp3) The code is like this.Please note that 'm' is the text I want to convert to sound.

tts = gTTS(text=m, lang='en')
tts.save("greeting.mp3")
p = vlc.MediaPlayer("greeting.mp3")
p.play()

I have further found out that the mp3 plays when I provide an infinite loop after play command.Like this

tts = gTTS(text=m, lang='en')
tts.save("greeting.mp3")
p = vlc.MediaPlayer("greeting.mp3")
p.play()
while True:
    pass

Is there any way I can avoid that Infinite loop.I have already imported all the required modules to the project.

is `p.play()` the last statement in your program? If so, the problem might be that program terminates before it has a chance to play the mp3 — Sweeney Todd, Nov 06 '16 at 17:31
I don't know much about the vlc module you are using but It seems to have a `is_playing()` method. So, you can replace `while True:` with `while p.is_playing()` and probably replace the `pass` with a `sleep` function to avoid busy waiting — Sweeney Todd, Nov 06 '16 at 17:38
I guess there is also a `get_length()` method which returns the length in ms . You can also use it like `time.sleep( p.get_length()/1000.)` — Sweeney Todd, Nov 06 '16 at 17:46

score 0 · Answer 1 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:27

What you are doing is starting a subprocess with the vlc lib, when your program closes, it closes the subprocess. So the quickest solution (without learning how to properly handle processes) is to set sleep timer:

import time

tts = gTTS(text=m, lang='en')
tts.save("greeting.mp3")
p = vlc.MediaPlayer("greeting.mp3")
p.play()
time.sleep(120) # number of seconds in

However, there is this solution for finding the length of media so the sleep period can be set from code.

How to play mp3 in python without infinite loop?

1 Answers1