Cross-platform, cross-browser way to play sound from Javascript?

If you're using Prototype, the Scriptaculous library has a sound API. jQuery appears to have a plugin, too.

dacracots code is clean basic dom, but perhaps written without a second thought? Of course you check the existance of an earlier embed first, and save the duplicate embed creation lines.

var soundEmbed = null;
//=====================================================================

function soundPlay(which)
{
    if (soundEmbed)
       document.body.removeChild(soundEmbed);
    soundEmbed = document.createElement("embed");
    soundEmbed.setAttribute("src", "/snd/"+which+".wav");
    soundEmbed.setAttribute("hidden", true);
    soundEmbed.setAttribute("autostart", true);
    document.body.appendChild(soundEmbed);
}

Came across the thoughts here while scanning for a solution for somewhat similar situation. Unfortunately my browser Mozilla/5.0 (X11; U; Linux i686; en-US; rv:1.9.0.15) Gecko/2009102814 Ubuntu/8.04 (hardy) Firefox/3.0.15 dies when trying this.

After installing latest updates, firefox still crashes, opera keeps alive.

You will have to include a plug-in like Real Audio or QuickTime to handle the .wav file, but this should work...

//======================================================================
var soundEmbed = null;
//======================================================================
function soundPlay(which)
    {
    if (!soundEmbed)
        {
        soundEmbed = document.createElement("embed");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("src", "/snd/"+which+".wav");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("hidden", true);
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("autostart", true);
        }
    else
        {
        document.body.removeChild(soundEmbed);
        soundEmbed.removed = true;
        soundEmbed = null;
        soundEmbed = document.createElement("embed");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("src", "/snd/"+which+".wav");
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("hidden", true);
        soundEmbed.setAttribute("autostart", true);
        }
    soundEmbed.removed = false;
    document.body.appendChild(soundEmbed);
    }
//======================================================================