Sound extraction for CD-DA burning from .WAV audio file format

Using information and text snippets
from https://ccrma.stanford.edu/courses/422/projects/WaveFormat/
     in may 2013. The link is now dead. An apparent copy of the page
     is 2017 at: http://soundfile.sapp.org/doc/WaveFormat/
from https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WAV

For libburnia-project.org by Thomas Schmitt <scdbackup@gmx.net>
December 2017


The WAVE file format is an application of the Microsoft RIFF container format
for multimedia files. A RIFF file consists of Chunks which contain Subchunks.
The Chunks form a linked list within the file, the Subchunks form a linked
list inside their Chunk.
All numbers are stored in little-endian byte order.

A .WAV file consists at least of one Chunk with id "RIFF", which contains
one Subchunk with id "fmt " and one with id "data":

Offset  Size  Name             Description

 0        4   ChunkID          Contains the letters "RIFF"
 4        4   ChunkSize        The size of the rest of the chunk following
                               this field. I.e. the two fields ChunkID and
                               ChunkSize are not included in this count.
 8        4   Format           Contains the letters "WAVE"


The "fmt " subchunk describes the sound data's format:

Offset  Size  Name             Description

 0        4   Subchunk1ID      Contains the letters "fmt "

 4        4   Subchunk1Size    The size of the rest of the Subchunk following
                               this field. I.e. Subchunk1ID and Subchunk1Size
                               are not included in this count.
 8        2   AudioFormat      PCM = 1 (i.e. Linear quantization)
                               Values other than 1 indicate some 
                               form of compression.
10        2   NumChannels      Mono = 1, Stereo = 2, etc.
12        4   SampleRate       8000, 44100, etc.
16        4   ByteRate         == SampleRate * NumChannels * BitsPerSample/8
20        2   BlockAlign       == NumChannels * BitsPerSample/8
                               The number of bytes for one sample including
                               all channels.
22        2   BitsPerSample    8 bits = 8, 16 bits = 16, etc.
More data may follow in this Subchunk if AudioFormat is not PCM.


The "data" subchunk contains the size of the data and the actual sound:

Offset  Size  Name             Description

 0        4   Subchunk2ID      Contains the letters "data"

 4        4   Subchunk2Size    == NumSamples * NumChannels * BitsPerSample/8
                               The number of audio data bytes.
 8        *   Data             The audio data bytes.


CD-DA prescribes these "fmt " parameters:
  AudioFormat == 1
  SampleRate == 44100
  BitsPerSample == 16
  NumChannels == 2 (stereo)
  (little-endian byte order)

If matching parameters are given in the .WAV file, one can directly use the
data bytes of Subchunk "data" as payload for burning a CD-DA track.


Above simple form can be expanded by other Chunks or Subchunks of Chunk "RIFF".
A .wav file appeared which beared a Subchunk "LIST" inside Chunk "RIFF".
Wikipedia mentions Chunks "INFO", "CSET", "JUNK", "PAD ".

Therefore one should expect such Chunks before Chunk "RIFF" and Subchunks
other than "fmt " and "data" inside the "RIFF" Chunk.
Multiple Chunks "RIFF" and Subchunks "fmt " or "data" per file have not been
seen yet. They would make extraction more cumbersome.