The play() methods

The java.applet.Applet class contains two methods which download a sound file from a particular URL and play it.

  public void play(URL soundfile) 
  public void play(URL directory, String filename) 

Normally these are used relative to the code base or the document base for maximum portability. Alternately, the URLs can be specified in one of the applet's PARAM tags.

For example, the music you're hearing about now is produced by the following applet:

import java.applet.*;


public class SoundApplet extends Applet {

  public void init() {
  
    String soundfile = this.getParameter("soundfile");
    if (soundfile != null) this.play(this.getDocumentBase(), soundfile);
    
  }

}