Richard Caley > speech_pm_1.0 > Speech::Festival



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Speech::Festival - Communicate with a festival server process.


  use Festival;
  $festival = new Festival -host => 'serverhost', -port => 1314;

  conn $festival;
  disconnect $festival;

  request $festival '(some scheme)';
  request $festival '(some scheme)', \&result_handler, $args, $for, $handler;

  if (result_waiting $festival) { # process it }
  wait_for_result $festival, $timeout;
  ($type, $data) = get_result $festival;


This package provides a simple interface to an instance of the festival speech synthesis system running as a server on some machine. If you want a simple speech-ouput module using this interface see Speech::Synthesis.

Since festival can return an unpredictable number of results from a single request, and since it is useful to process them as they arrive, something a little more complex than a simple remote-procedure-call interface is needed.

There are basicly three ways to organise your application's interaction with festival. In the simplest cases you can pass a result handling procedure along with your request. For more control you can process one value at a time by using result_waiting to poll for results or wait for result to block until a result is available.

In any case results consist of a type and some data. The types are


The data is a Scheme expression, for instance a number or a list.


The data is a waveform. what format this is in willbe determined by what you have previously told festival.


All the results for this request have been sent. No data.


Festival has reported an error. No data. Unfortunatly festival doesn't sen any information about the error, so for details you will have to check the server's log.

A single festival session (between calls to conn and disconnect) talks to a single Scheme interpreter in festival, and hence state will be remembered between requests.

$festival = new Festival 'serverhost', 1314;

Create a new festival session which will connect to the given host and port. If ommitted these default to localhost and 1314.

conn $festival;

Connect to festival. Returns true if all is well, false otherwise. In the event of an error the variable $speech_error conatains a description of it.

disconnect $festival;

Disconnect from festival. The connection mat be reopened later with conn, but any state will have been lost.

request $festival '(some scheme)';

Send the given Scheme to festival. You should use result_waiting, wait_for_result and get_result to process the results of the request.


Send the given Scheme to festival asking it to call &result_handler on each result returned. The handler is called as:

        result_handler($type, $data, $args, $for, $handler)
if (result_waiting $festival) { # process it }

Look to see if there are any results waiting to be processed. This only guarantees that the start of the result has arrived, so a subsequent call to get_result may not return instantly, but should not block for an extended time.

wait_for_result $festival, $timeout;

Blocks until festival sends a result. Timeout is in seconds, if can be omitted, in which case the call waits for an unbounded time. Returns false if he call timed out, true if there is a request waiting. Again, this only guarantees that a result has started to arrive.

($type, $data) = get_result $festival;

Reads a single result.


The code below does some arithmatic the hard way.

    use Speech::Festival;
    $festival = new Speech::Festival -host => 'festival-server.mynet';

    conn $festival 
         || die "can't talk to festival - $speech_error";

    request $festival '(+ 123 456)', 
            sub {
                my ($type, $data) = @_;

                print "Scheme Result=$data"
                        if $type eq $Speech::Festival::SCHEME;
                print "ERROR!\n"
                        if $type eq $Speech::Festival::ERROR;


Richard Caley,


Speech::Synthesis, Speech::Festival::Synthesis, perl(1), festival(1), Festival Documentation

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