Playing an audio file, but not waiting for it to finish?

[Chris Angelico]

On Fri, Sep 16, 2016 at 4:06 AM, kerbingamer376 <martinjp376 at gmail.com> wrote:
> I have a library that allows me to play sound files. However, the play function waits for the sound to finish before it returns, and I'd like to be able to start the sound playing, and then have it return immediately so my program can continue, but also be able to know when the sound finishes. Is this possible, without modifying the library?
>

It depends on the library. What you want is often called "asynchronous
playing", and it's usually possible, one way or another. As a very
simple example, creating a subprocess ['vlc', '--play-and-exit',
'some/audio/file'] will let you start something playing, and then have
the options to wait for the process to exit (equivalent to what you
have), be notified when it exits (what you're asking for), or kill the
process (another important feature, esp if you want to start a
different sound playing). But it's all up to the library.

ChrisA