I can use C, running it on the commandline, in a linux environment.

I'd rather use perl, or shell, or both.

I want to find some resources/software/tools to help me directly or indirectly, part or whole, develop a (noncommercial) speech recognition system of some kind for myself on my server.

I mean I wanna take aiffs or wavs, wavs ideally but both I guess, mainly wavs. Starting with wavs. And look at them and make libraries of wavs so I can match sounds in soundfiles against the library.

I tried to "cat" a wav file in linux and it had a diahorrea incident.

I uploaded some piece of software but might not have made the effort to install it properly. I didn't give it much writing permission. Then again maybe it was just rubbish and didn't install properly for its own sordid reasons.

I'll keep trying, as this could save me a tonne of time on my commercial work too, although the system is not for sale and will not be in any way a commercial software system. I just want to stop using the keyboard and screen for everything.

So if any serious programmers have a way I can do any of this in C, as that's least unlikely, or ideally perl, or even php if necessary, but not asp at any stage, could you point me in the right direction? I shall start hunting right now anyway and could well figure it out. But sometimes you don't find anything for a while, so if you do know, do speak.

First useful thing I've found so far is
http://www.sonicspot.com/guide/wavefiles.html
which isn't of any hands on use, just helpful background, not very expansive
and this, which may be a big step forwards for me
http://www.topology.org/linux/audio.html#wav2raw

I'd have thought a more specialised froum would be needed for an answer to this.

Yeah but you don't get many mavericks there. However I think this is yet another scheme I'll have to find me feet with alone. Not just yet. As usual less lofty work is overshadowing my time.

I like to look at programs that have already been written, play around with their code; figure out how it works, then figure out how to write your own in place of the original.

Easier said than done I know, but if the language you're looking to develop in has a strong community (however you may wish to define that exactly), you may find that of use.

That's okay to start with Lashy my son, but what you need to do is buy an O'Reilly book or two and sit and read it fully and be thrilled that as you plough through the chapters and find whole chunks of encyclopedic knowledge of commands and what they do and how to use them, you will sit down with the machine and start building your own raw professional (but groundlevel) stuff. Do it, do it now. O'Reilly should have your money. Give it to them, I say. Be their b****. Do it now, whilst you have the fever, go to some website, buy online, get it delivered, by next week you'll be making your own incomprehensible useless junk for no purpose other than to become some kind of a wizard, I say, a wizard.

http://oreilly.com/perl/
http://oreilly.com/php/
http://oreilly.com/java/
http://oreilly.com/linux/

Buying the book could be pennance for trying to flog all these computer books in your sig links! ;-) Now now, Lashy boy. The grail in life is sought when the seeker does it from their heart.

To quote Robert Nester Marley...

Originally Posted by Robert Nester Marley

Bend down low, let me tell you what I know now;
Bend down low, let me tell you what I know.
Oh! Fisherman row to reap what you sow now;
Oh, tell you all I know (Oo-oh!),
you've got to let me go now (Oo-oh!),
And all you've got to do:
(Bend down low) Oh yeah! Let me tell you what I know;
Bend down low, let me tell you what I know. Oh yeah!

check this out though
http://thecommandline.net/

the commandline is where real programmers live - not your ebay and your ipad programmers, ie not the ones companies farm, i mean your wikileaks programmers and your security infrastructure megacorporation programmers - the ones who define programming the same way the fastest car on the motorway defines the speed of the line/queue behind them

Don't make me quote The Bangles* at you, man. BUY THE BOOKS and read them. This will be the day demarcating one lifetime of capability from the impotent side of the wall. *the song is "if she knew what she wants" - the things programming causes your ears to accidentally fall upon. but it's not all James Brown or the Prodigy or whatever great legend rocks your boat (rocky boats are more fun) like Joplin (Janis, but the other one too if you want) and Jim, and the rest of em. But not Elton John, he's smarmy. And the less said about the musician Bill Bailey hates the most, the better.

You know how much money it's worth to know these things as well as I'm flippantly encouraging you to do? You can give anyone anything you or they want, if you can be a master in this field. As Tony Blair's king maker said, in this field you must find the very edge of development, the leading edge, and project a little ahead in time of that place, and learn to be in control of the future of the leading edge, because you can "keep the wolves from (your) door" easily then.

[edit added just now today here: look at that - i caught myself. i made it all about money, in the end. bad me. it's not, you know. still, as long as you're giving it all away, i guess that's okay. so maybe not that bad me. or not at all, if my intention's to do it for someone else. but who'd believe that. still. time will tell]