libvips/doc/binding.md

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<refmeta>
<refentrytitle>How to write bindings</refentrytitle>
<manvolnum>3</manvolnum>
<refmiscinfo>libvips</refmiscinfo>
</refmeta>
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<refnamediv>
<refname>Binding</refname>
<refpurpose>Writing bindings for libvips</refpurpose>
</refnamediv>
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There are full libvips bindings for quite a few environments now: C, C++,
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command-line, Ruby, PHP, Lua, Python and JavaScript (node).
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This chapter runs through the four main styles that have been found to work
well. If you want to write a new binding, one of these should be close
to what you need.
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# Don't bind the top-level C API
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The libvips C API (vips_add() and so on) is very inconvenient and dangerous
to use from other languages due to its heavy use of varargs.
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It's much better to use the layer below. This lower layer is structured as
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create operator, set parameters, execute, extract results. For example, you can
execute vips_invert() like this:
```C
/* compile with
*
* gcc -g -Wall callvips.c `pkg-config vips --cflags --libs`
*
*/
#include <vips/vips.h>
int
main( int argc, char **argv )
{
VipsImage *in;
VipsImage *out;
VipsOperation *op;
VipsOperation *new_op;
GValue gvalue = { 0 };
if( VIPS_INIT( argv[0] ) )
/* This shows the vips error buffer and quits with a fail exit
* code.
*/
vips_error_exit( NULL );
/* This will print a table of any ref leaks on exit, very handy for
* development.
*/
vips_leak_set( TRUE );
if( argc != 3 )
vips_error_exit( "usage: %s input-filename output-filename",
argv[0] );
if( !(in = vips_image_new_from_file( argv[1], NULL )) )
vips_error_exit( NULL );
/* Create a new operator from a nickname. NULL for unknown operator.
*/
op = vips_operation_new( "invert" );
/* Init a gvalue as an image, set it to in, use the gvalue to set the
* operator property.
*/
g_value_init( &gvalue, VIPS_TYPE_IMAGE );
g_value_set_object( &gvalue, in );
g_object_set_property( G_OBJECT( op ), "in", &gvalue );
g_value_unset( &gvalue );
/* We no longer need in: op will hold a ref to it as long as it needs
* it.
*/
g_object_unref( in );
/* Call the operation. This will look up the operation+args in the vips
* operation cache and either return a previous operation, or build
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* this one. In either case, we have a new ref we must release.
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*/
if( !(new_op = vips_cache_operation_build( op )) ) {
g_object_unref( op );
vips_error_exit( NULL );
}
g_object_unref( op );
op = new_op;
/* Now get the result from op. g_value_get_object() does not ref the
* object, so we need to make a ref for out to hold.
*/
g_value_init( &gvalue, VIPS_TYPE_IMAGE );
g_object_get_property( G_OBJECT( op ), "out", &gvalue );
out = VIPS_IMAGE( g_value_get_object( &gvalue ) );
g_object_ref( out );
g_value_unset( &gvalue );
/* All done: we can unref op. The output objects from op actually hold
* refs back to it, so before we can unref op, we must unref them.
*/
vips_object_unref_outputs( VIPS_OBJECT( op ) );
g_object_unref( op );
if( vips_image_write_to_file( out, argv[2], NULL ) )
vips_error_exit( NULL );
g_object_unref( out );
return( 0 );
}
```
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libvips has a couple of extra things to let you examine the arguments and
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types of an operator at runtime. Use vips_argument_map() to loop
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over all the arguments of an operator, and vips_object_get_argument()
to fetch the type and flags of a specific argument.
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Use vips_operation_get_flags() to get general information about an operator.
# Compiled language which can call C
The C++ binding uses this lower layer to define a function called
`VImage::call()` which can call any libvips operator with a not-varargs set of
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variable arguments.
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A small Python program walks the set of all libvips operators and generates a
set of static bindings. For example:
```c++
VImage VImage::invert( VOption *options )
{
VImage out;
call( "invert", (options ? options : VImage::option()) ->
set( "in", *this ) ->
set( "out", &out ) );
return( out );
}
```
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So from C++ you can call any libvips operator (though without type-safety) with
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`VImage::call()`, or use the member functions on `VImage` to get type-safe
calls for at least the required operator arguments.
The `VImage` class also adds automatic reference counting, constant expansion,
operator overloads, and various other useful features.
# Dynamic language with FFI
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Languages like Ruby, Python, JavaScript and LuaJIT can't call C directly, but
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they do support FFI. The bindings for these languages work rather like C++,
but use FFI to call into libvips and run operations.
Since these languages are dynamic, they can add another trick: they intercept
the method-missing hook and attempt to run any method calls not implemented by
the `Image` class as libvips operators. This makes these bindings self-writing:
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they only contain a small amount of code and just expose everything they find in
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the libvips class hierarchy.
# Dynamic langauge without FFI
PHP does not have FFI, unfortunately, so for this language a small native
module implements the general `vips_call()` function for PHP language types,
and a larger pure PHP layer makes it convenient to use.
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# gobject-introspection
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The C source code to libvips has been marked up with special comments
describing the interface in a standard way. These comments are read by
the `gobject-introspection` package when libvips is compiled and used to
generate a typelib, a description of how to call the library. Many languages
have gobject-introspection packages: all you need to do to call libvips
from your favorite language is to start g-o-i, load the libvips typelib,
and you should have the whole library available. For example, from Python
it's as simple as:
```python
from gi.repository import Vips
```
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You can now use all of the libvips introspection machinery, as noted above.
Unfortunately g-o-i has some strong disadvantages. It is not very portable,
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since you will need a g-o-i layer for whatever platform you are targetting;
it does not cross-compile well, since typelibs include a lot of very-low
level data (such as exact structure layouts); and installation for your
users is likely to be tricky.
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If you have a choice, I would recommend simply using FFI.
# Documentation
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You can generate searchable docs from a <code>.gir</code> (the thing that
is built from scanning libvips and which in turn turn the typelib is
made from) with <command>g-ir-doc-tool</command>, for example:
```
$ g-ir-doc-tool --language=Python -o ~/mydocs Vips-8.0.gir
```
Then to view them, either:
```
$ yelp ~/mydocs
```
Or perhaps:
```
$ cd ~/mydocs
$ yelp-build html .
```
To make HTML docs. This is an easy way to see what you can call in the
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library.