#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
int main(int argc, char *argv[])
{
       union w
      {
       short int a;
       char b;
      }c;
      c.a=1;
      if( c.b==1 )  printf("little endian\n");
      else printf("big endian\n");
      system("PAUSE"); 
      return 0;
}

// data 为读取到的采样点的值，speech为原始数据流，
//对应于下面的"WAVE"格式文件的第二个子数据块“data”块的“Data”部分。
for(i=0;i<NumSample;i++){
  if(BitsPerSample==8)
      data[i] = (int)*((char*)speech+i);
  else if(BitsPerSample==16)
      data[i] = (int)*((short*)speech+i);
  else if(BitsPerSample==32)
      data[i] = (int)*((int*)speech+i);
}

52 49 46 46 24 08 00 00 57 41 56 45 66 6d 74 20 10 00 00 00 01 00 02 00 
22 56 00 00 88 58 01 00 04 00 10 00 64 61 74 61 00 08 00 00 00 00 00 00 
24 17 1e f3 3c 13 3c 14 16 f9 18 f9 34 e7 23 a6 3c f2 24 f2 11 ce 1a 0d

#include <stdio.h>
#include <stdlib.h>
#include <string.h>

// define Wave format structure
typedef struct tWAVEFORMATEX
{
    short wFormatTag;         /* format type */
    short nChannels;          /* number of channels (i.e. mono, stereo...) */
    unsigned int nSamplesPerSec;     /* sample rate */
    unsigned int nAvgBytesPerSec;    /* for buffer estimation */
    short nBlockAlign;        /* block size of data */
    short wBitsPerSample;     /* number of bits per sample of mono data */
    short cbSize;             /* the count in bytes of the size of */
                                    /* extra information (after cbSize) */
} WAVEFORMATEX, *PWAVEFORMATEX;

char* wavread(char *fname, WAVEFORMATEX *wf);

int main(){
  char fname[] = "test.wav";
  char *speech;
  WAVEFORMATEX wf;
  
  speech = wavread(fname, &wf);
  // afterward processing...
  
  return 0;
}

// read wave file
char* wavread(char *fname, WAVEFORMATEX *wf){
  FILE* fp;
  char str[32];
  char *speech;
  unsigned int subchunk1size; // head size
  unsigned int subchunk2size; // speech data size

  // check format type
  fp = fopen(fname,"r");
  if(!fp){
      fprintf(stderr,"Can not open the wave file: %s.\n",fname);
      return NULL;
  }
  fseek(fp, 8, SEEK_SET);
  fread(str, sizeof(char), 7, fp);
  str[7] = ‘\0‘;
  if(strcmp(str,"WAVEfmt")){
      fprintf(stderr,"The file is not in WAVE format!\n");
      return NULL;
  }
  
  // read format header
  fseek(fp, 16, SEEK_SET);
  fread((unsigned int*)(&subchunk1size),4,1,fp);
  fseek(fp, 20, SEEK_SET);
  fread(wf, subchunk1size, 1, fp);
  
  // read wave data
  fseek(fp, 20+subchunk1size, SEEK_SET);
  fread(str, 1, 4, fp);
  str[4] = ‘\0‘;
  if(strcmp(str,"data")){
      fprintf(stderr,"Locating data start point failed!\n");
      return NULL;
  }
  fseek(fp, 20+subchunk1size+4, SEEK_SET);
  fread((unsigned int*)(&subchunk2size), 4, 1, fp);
  speech = (char*)malloc(sizeof(char)*subchunk2size);
  if(!speech){
      fprintf(stderr, "Memory alloc failed!\n");
      return NULL;
  }
  fseek(fp, 20+subchunk1size+8, SEEK_SET);
  fread(speech, 1, subchunk2size, fp);

  fclose(fp);
  return speech;
}