Assist in performing online Text-To-Speech and immediate playback.

say.py

#!/usr/bin/env python
"""
Assist in performing online Text-To-Speech and immediate playback.
"""

import sys
import requests
import urllib
import tempfile
import commands
import locale

LC = locale.getdefaultlocale()[0] or 'en'

def google_tts(text, fh):
    """
    Has Google perform Text-To-Speech on text, writing to fh.
    """
    for line in chop(text, 100):
        url = "http://translate.google.com/translate_tts?ie=UTF-8&tl=%s&q=%s" \
            % tuple(map(urllib.quote_plus, [LC, line]))
        # MPEG streams can be concatenated
        fh.write(requests.get(url).content)
        print 'TTS Line:', line

def mplayer(filename):
    commands.getoutput('mplayer ' + filename)

def chop(text, size=100):
    """
    Chops up text in parts of at most size, separating at natural pauses.
    """
    splitlist = ['.?!', ',:;()"', ' ']
    while len(text) > size:
        subtext = text[:size]
        for splitters in splitlist:
            sep = max(map(subtext.rfind, splitters))
            if sep >= 0:
                break
        if sep == -1:
            sep = size-1
        yield text[:sep+1]
        text = text[sep+1:].lstrip()
    if len(text) > 0:
        yield text

def say(text, tts=google_tts, playback=mplayer):
    """
    Pronounces text as speech using the given methods.
    """
    text = ' '.join(text.split())
    fh = tempfile.NamedTemporaryFile()
    tts(text, fh)
    fh.flush()
    playback(fh.name)
    fh.close()

if __name__ == '__main__':
    args = sys.argv[1:]
    if len(args) > 0 and args[0].startswith('-'):
        LC = args[0][1:]
        args = args[1:]
    if len(args) == 0:
        text = sys.stdin.read()
    else:
        text = ' '.join(args)
    say(text)