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.TH "FLAC" "1" "02 July 2002" "" ""
.SH NAME
flac \- Free Lossless Audio Codec
.SH SYNOPSIS

\fBflac\fR [ \fB\fIOPTION\fB\fR]  \fB\fIinfile\fB\fR \fB\fI...\fB\fR

.SH "DESCRIPTION"
.PP
This manual page documents briefly the
\fBflac\fR command.
.PP
This manual page was written for the Debian GNU/Linux
distribution because the original program does not have a
manual page.  Instead, it has documentation in HTML
format; see below.
.SH "OPTIONS"
.PP
A summary of options is included below.  For a complete
description, see the HTML documentation.
.SS "GENERIC OPTIONS"
.TP
\fB-H \fR
Show detailed help screen
.TP
\fB-d \fR
Decode (default behavior is encode)
.TP
\fB-c \fR
Encode from standard input, or decode to
standard output
.TP
\fB-t \fR
Test a flac encoded file (same as -d
except no decoded file is written)
.TP
\fB-a \fR
Analyze a flac encoded file (same as -d
except an analysis file is written)
.TP
\fB-s \fR
Silent mode (do not write runtime
encode/decode statistics to stdout)
.TP
\fB-o \fIfilename\fB\fR
Force the output file name (usually flac just
changes the extension).  May only be used when
encoding a single file.  May not be used in
conjunction with --output-prefix.
.TP
\fB--output-prefix \fIstring\fB\fR
Prefix each output file name with the given
string.  This can be useful for encoding/decoding
files to a different directory.  Make sure if your
string is a path name that it ends with a trailing
`/' (slash).
.TP
\fB--delete-input-file \fR
Automatically delete the input file after a
successful encode or decode.  If there was an
error (including a verify error) the input file
is left intact.
.TP
\fB--skip \fIsamples\fB\fR
Skip the specified number of samples at the
beginning of the input file (can be used for both
encoding and decoding)
.SS "ANALYSIS OPTIONS"
.TP
\fB--a-rtext \fR
Includes the residual signal in the analysis
file.  This will make the file very big, much
larger than even the decoded file.
.TP
\fB--a-rgp \fR
Generates a gnuplot file for every subframe;
each file will contain the residual distribution
of the subframe.  This will create a lot of
files.
.SS "DECODING OPTIONS"
.TP
\fB-F \fR
By default flac stops decoding with an error
and removes the partially decoded file if it
encounters a bitstream error.  With -F, errors are
still printed but flac will continue decoding to
completion.  Note that errors may cause the decoded
audio to be missing some samples or have silent
sections.
.SS "ENCODING OPTIONS"
.TP
\fB--ogg\fR
When encoding, generate Ogg-FLAC output instead
of native-FLAC.  Ogg-FLAC streams are FLAC streams
wrapped in an Ogg transport layer.  The resulting
file should have an '.ogg' extension and will still
be decodable by flac.

When decoding, force the input to be treated as
Ogg-FLAC.  This is useful when piping input from
stdin or when the filename does not end in '.ogg'.
.TP
\fB--lax\fR
Allow encoder to generate non-Subset
files.
.TP
\fB--sector-align\fR
Align encoding of multiple CD format WAVE
files on sector boundaries.  See the HTML
documentation for more information.
.TP
\fB-S \fI{ # | X | #x }\fB\fR
Include a point or points in a SEEKTABLE.  Using #,
a seek point at that sample number is added.  Using
X, a placeholder point is added at the end of a the
table.  Using #x, # evenly spaced seek points will
be added, the first being at sample 0.  You may use
many -S options; the resulting SEEKTABLE will be the
unique-ified union of all such values.  With no -S
options, flac defaults to '-S 100x'.  Use -S- for
no SEEKTABLE.  Note: '-S #x' will not work if the
encoder can't determine the input size before
starting.  Note: if you use '-S #' and # is >=
samples in the input, there will be either no seek
point entered (if the input size is determinable
before encoding starts) or a placeholder point (if
input size is not determinable).
.TP
\fB-P \fIbytes\fB\fR
Tell the encoder to write a PADDING metadata
block of the given length (in bytes) after the
STREAMINFO block.  This is useful if you plan to
tag the file later with an APPLICATION block;
instead of having to rewrite the entire file later
just to insert your block, you can write directly
over the PADDING block.  Note that the total length
of the PADDING block will be 4 bytes longer than
the length given because of the 4 metadata block
header bytes.  You can force no PADDING block at
all to be written with -P-, which is the default.
.TP
\fB-b \fIblocksize\fB\fR
Default is 1152 for -l 0, else 4608; must be
192/576/1152/2304/4608/256/512/1024/2048/4096/8192/16384/32768
(unless --lax is used)
.TP
\fB-m\fR
Try mid-side coding for each frame (stereo
input only)
.TP
\fB-M\fR
Loose mid-side coding for all frames (stereo
input only)
.TP
\fB-0..-8\fR
Fastest compression..highest compression
(default is -5).  These are synonyms for other
options:
.RS
.TP
\fB-0\fR
Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -r 2,2
.TP
\fB-1\fR
Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -M -r 2,2
.TP
\fB-2\fR
Synonymous with -l 0 -b 1152 -m -r 3
.TP
\fB-3\fR
Synonymous with -l 6 -b 4608 -r 3,3
.TP
\fB-4\fR
Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -M -r 3,3
.TP
\fB-5\fR
Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 3,3
.TP
\fB-6\fR
Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -r 4
.TP
\fB-7\fR
Synonymous with -l 8 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
.TP
\fB-8\fR
Synonymous with -l 12 -b 4608 -m -e -r 6
.RE
.TP
\fB--fast\fR
Fastest compression.  Currently
synonymous with -0.
.TP
\fB--best\fR
Highest compression.  Currently
synonymous with -8.
.TP
\fB-e\fR
Do exhaustive model search
(expensive!)
.TP
\fB-E\fR
Do escape coding in the entropy coder.  This
causes the encoder to use an unencoded representation
of the residual in a partition if it is smaller.  It
increases the runtime and usually results in an
improvement of less than 1%.
.TP
\fB-l \fImax_lpc_order\fB\fR
0 => use only fixed predictors
.TP
\fB-p\fR
Do exhaustive search of LP coefficient
quantization (expensive!).  Overrides -q,
does nothing if using -l 0
.TP
\fB-q \fIbits\fB\fR
Precision of the quantized linear-predictor
coefficients, 0 => let encoder decide (min is 5,
default is 0)
.TP
\fB-r \fI[level,]level\fB\fR
Set the [min,]max residual partition order
(0..16). min defaults to 0 if unspecified.  Default
is -r 3,3.
.TP
\fB-V\fR
Verify a correct encoding by decoding the
output in parallel and comparing to the
original
.TP
\fB-F- -S- -P- -m- -M- -e- -E- -p- -V- --delete-input-file- --lax- --ogg- \fR
These flags can be used to invert the sense
of the corresponding normal option.
.SS "FORMAT OPTIONS"
.TP
\fB-fb\fR
Big-endian byte order
.TP
\fB-fl\fR
Little-endian byte order
.TP
\fB-fc \fIchannels\fB\fR
Set number of channels.
.TP
\fB-fp \fIbits_per_sample\fB\fR
Set bits per sample.
.TP
\fB-fs \fIsample_rate\fB\fR
Set sample rate (in Hz).
.TP
\fB-fu\fR
Unsigned samples (default is signed)
.TP
\fB-fr\fR
Force to raw format (even if filename ends
in \fI.wav\fR).
.SH "SEE ALSO"
.PP
The programs are documented fully by HTML format
documentation, available in
\fI/usr/share/doc/flac/html\fR on
Debian GNU/Linux systems.
.SH "AUTHOR"
.PP
This manual page was written by Matt Zimmerman <mdz@debian.org> for
the Debian GNU/Linux system (but may be used by others).