[Resolved] Problem with passthru and netpbm thumbnail function

[mwhite]

Hi,

I am working on a simple gallery and want to add thumbnails on the fly. My service provider hasn't installed the GD library yet so I have written a very simple function that uses NetPBM.

function thumbnail($file){
$jpegtopnm = realpath("whlib/netpbm/jpegtopnm");
$pnmscale = realpath("whlib/netpbm/pnmscale");
$pnmtojpeg = realpath("whlib/netpbm/pnmtojpeg");
$size = "100";

passthru("$jpegtopnm $file | $pnmscale -height $size| $pnmtojpeg");
}

the function works fine and displays the image when called as the only item in the script eg.

<?PHP
function thumbnail($file){
$jpegtopnm = realpath("whlib/netpbm/jpegtopnm");
$pnmscale = realpath("whlib/netpbm/pnmscale");
$pnmtojpeg = realpath("whlib/netpbm/pnmtojpeg");
$size = "100";

  passthru("$jpegtopnm $file | $pnmscale -height $size| $pnmtojpeg");

}

thumbnail("somepic.jpg");
?>

However if I add other items to the script I get the raw output of the image file rather than the thumbnail picture. eg.

<?PHP
function thumbnail($file){
$jpegtopnm = realpath("whlib/netpbm/jpegtopnm");
$pnmscale = realpath("whlib/netpbm/pnmscale");
$pnmtojpeg = realpath("whlib/netpbm/pnmtojpeg");
$size = "100";

  passthru("$jpegtopnm $file | $pnmscale -height $size| $pnmtojpeg");

}

echo "<a href=somplace.php>";
thumbnail("somepic.jpg");
echo "</a>";
?>

Why is this happening and how do I fix it?

Thanks,

Malcolm 🙁

[mtmosier]

Your function is dumping the actual image directly onto the page as binary data. You're not going to be able to mix html with the binary image data. You should break this into two scripts, one with outputs the thumbnail, and the other which outputs the html.

In your script which writes the html you would do something like this.

echo "<a href=somplace.php>";
echo "<img src=\"thumbnail.php?filename=somepic.jpg\">";
echo "</a>"; 

[mwhite]

Thanks - that worked a treat.

Malcolm