Red Hat Linux systems ship with a shell script for
/usr/bin/play, which serves as a wrapper around the
/usr/bin/sox program.  The shell script's use of $1
rather than "$@", however, causes /usr/bin/play to reject
any attempts at using command line options.  Since many
programs assume that "play" supports the "-v" option to
set volume, the use of $1 rather than "$@" causes those
programs to produce error messages rather than audio output.
(Exmh, a graphical front-end to the MH mail system shipped
with Red Hat Linux, is one example of a program that tries
to use "play -v" to play .au files.)

The patch included here modifies /usr/bin/play to be
a better imitation of traditional "play" programs.


--- /usr/bin/play       Thu Aug 29 18:38:51 1996
+++ /tmp/play   Mon Jan 25 06:59:45 1999
@@ -1,3 +1,3 @@
 #!/bin/sh

-/usr/bin/sox $1 -t .au - > /dev/audio
+/usr/bin/sox "$@" -t .au - > /dev/audio



(This was reported to me on a system which the author
described as "5.x".  I have verified the bug on a 4.2
system.  "rpm -q -f /usr/bin/play" reports "sox-11g-5".)

Sincerely,
 Jacob Morzinski                      jmorzins@mit.edu