VoiceXML 2.1 Development Guide

<break> element

The break element is used to designate a pause in the TTS output, with the length being a user-specified time value in either milliseconds, or of a predetermined ‘size’ variable.

usage

attributes

size	Data Type: (none\|small\|medium\|large)	Default: medium
	Used to indicate a relative value for the pause length within the TTS output. The equivalent values for this attribute are: small: 2 second pause medium: 5 second pause large: 10 second pause Note that this attribute has been phased out entirely in favor of the SSML-compliant 'strength' attribute.
strength	Data Type: (none\|x-weak\|weak\|medium\|strong\|x-strong)	Default: Optional (medium)
	The strength attribute is the SSML-compliant replacement of the older size attribute. The value of this attribute specifies the length of silence appanded/prepended to any TTS output. The allowable values, and their time equivalents are: none -- 0 seconds of silence x-weak -- .35 seconds of silence weak -- .35 seconds of silence medium -- .7 seconds of silence strong -- 1.0 seconds of silence x-strong -- 1.0 seconds of silence
time	Data Type: CDATA	Default: Optional
	The time attribute replaces the non-compliant attribute of 'msecs', used on the VXML 1.0 platform. Any numeric value is valid input within this attribute. A value of ‘5000’ would indicate a 5 second pause within the TTS output.

shadow variables

none

parents

children

none

code samples

<Break strength-time> sample

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>

<vxml version = "2.1">

<meta name="author" content="Matthew Henry"/>
<meta name="copyright" content="2005 voxeo corporation"/>
<meta name="maintainer" content="YOUR_EMAIL@HERE.COM"/>

<form id="F_1">

<block>
<prompt>
We will now force a pause in our T T S output
starting right here <break strength="weak"/> and then we
will have another right <break time="2000"/> here.
</prompt>
</block>

</form>

</vxml>

additional links

W3C SSML 1.0 Specification

ANNOTATIONS: EXISTING POSTS

safarishane

8/1/2005 2:55 PM (EDT)

Does the time attribute require either "ms" or "s" to be specified?

harrybr

5/8/2006 9:23 AM (EDT)

You don't need to specify S or MS. If you dont it interprets it as MS, i.e.

<break time="2000"/>

is interpreted as 2000 miliseconds.

Also, I think you need to make sure it is in lower case, i.e <break .... rather than <Break ... Otherwise the voxeo system will just ignore your tag.

(Please correct me if I am wrong).

MattHenry

5/8/2006 4:02 PM (EDT)

You are indeed correct on all counts, Harry. I should also point out that you can simply specify <break/>, which will insert a pause with a default value of about 2 seconds.

~Matt

PremiseScienceMuseum

9/6/2006 3:10 PM (EDT)

This element does not seem to work if you have nothing else in your <prompt> block. In other words I can't use it simply as a pause in the logic of my application. Right?

VoxeoJoe

9/8/2006 5:23 PM (EDT)

Hello ScienceMuseum,

You are correct. If you simply have only a "break" within a "prompt", it gets ignored. However, if you do the following, it works:

<prompt>
<break time="1000"/> <break time="1000"/>
</prompt>

It works because the space in-between the two "break" elements will get our TTS to kick-in for that space.

Sincerely,

Joe Gallina
Voxeo Corporation

ranm

6/24/2010 7:05 AM (EDT)

Is it possible to use a variable as the value for the break time?

voxeoJeffK

6/24/2010 7:31 AM (EDT)

Hello,

No, the "time" attribute of <break> is required to be CDATA. What you could do is have multiple wav files of different silence durations. Then use the <audio> tag with the "expr" attribute. Something like:

<assign name="silenceTime" expr="3"/>
<audio expr="'path/to/audios/' + silenceTime + '.wav'"/>

This would fetch a file "path/to/audios/3.wav"

Regards,
Jeff Kustermann
Voxeo Support