GD I'm going crazy

[Anon]

OK here is the deal
I'm using a window machine and trying to get GD Lib to work
I got all of the dll in the same directory of PHP in php.ini
I comment out all of the extension:
extension=php_gd.dll
extension=php_gd_gif.dll

I also specify the extension path

extension_dir = "C:\Program Files\PHP"

I stoped and restarted the IIS but still in my php page when I try to use one of the GD function I get:
fatal error call to a non existing function

Am I missing something?

thank you
Nicola

[mithril]

You can only load one of the GD extension dll's. Choose php_gd.dll as php_gd_gif.dll is not a standard part of the PHP distro (for various reason the GD Library no longer supports GIF's). Now restart IIS and call phpinfo(). If it loaded fine, you'll see a GD section in the output. If not, you should have gotten an error message when the server tried to load in GD. Also, when you restart IIS you're restarting the entire thing right? Not just the Web portion of the service?

-geoff

[Anon]

Geoff
I did like you said
I even restart the machine to make sure that everything was restarted, and the weird thing is that extension_dir shows
"no value" instead of the path that I specify in php.ini

now could the problem be that I'm running php in window XP ?
or otherwise why is that not showing out?

thank you
ciao
Nicola
(btw thank you for that php_info)

[mithril]

Hmmm.... PHP may be borking on the space in the path. Try creating another folder (c:\php\extensions for example) and drop all your php_*.dll files in that directory. Now change extension_dir to:

extension_dir="c:\php\extensions"

Also, is your php.ini living in c:\winnt? If not, move it there. Restart IIS and call phpinfo() again. If you see "c:\php\extensions" as the extension_dir value you've got a pretty good chance of GD being loaded properly. As it stands right now you're correct, GD isn't loading because PHP doesn't know where to find php_gd.dll. Let me know if this works.

-geoff

[Anon]

Geoff-
I finally got PHP to read the php.ini file
in window XP there is not a winnt directory so I moved php.ini into windows instead of windows/system32/ and now the file gets read.
Now the problem I get is this:
"unable to load dynamic library:'C:\PHP\php_gd.dll' - the specified procedure could not be found."
and I have php_gd.dll into that directory

what is the procedure in the message about?

any idea?
thank you
Nicola

[mithril]

The message is basically saying that PHP can't find the file still. You've got your extension_dir set to "C:\PHP", that's where the php_gd.dll file is located, and the setting is reflected in phpinfo()'s output? You're also using the php_gd.dll file which matches the version number of your PHP installation right? PHP extensions are build-specific, that is php_gd.dll from a 4.0.5 distribution won't work for 4.0.6 or 4.0.4 and vice versa.

That is the primary reason why I suggested you forget about the php_gd_gif.dll extension. Excluding all the licensing issues/constraints and the fact that PNG is a much better format than GIF, you'd end up being reliant on someone else to build a copy of the extension each time you want to upgrade your PHP version.

I've not used XP (and am not likely to🙂, but the only thing I can suggest is to play around with the way the path is written in extension_dir (ie. c:\php, c:\php\, c:/php/, etc). I'm guessing that XP doesn't interpret filesystem paths in a case sensitive manner since no other MS OS has done so, but PHP on XP may want the path in exact case. It also may want the path specified using the *Nix forward slash instead of the Win32 backslash.

-geoff

[Anon]

Geoff-
I got it working 🙂
it was a permission problem with NTFS files
and also I had to change the path on the extension_dir like you said

thank you very much for your time and help

ciao
Nicola

[Anon]

do u use GD for making GIF. i know if u want. you'd better user redhat lunix, then u will got GIF but PNG can't.

[mithril]

"do u use GD for making GIF. i know if u want. you'd better user redhat lunix, then u will got GIF but PNG can't."

Huh? This post doesn't make any sense all. The ablity, or lack thereof, to use GD to create or manipulate GIF's has nothing to do with the platform you're running on. It has everything to do with the fact that GD dropped GIF support in favour of PNG as of version 1.6.2.

Unisys managed to sneak through a loophole in US Patent Law way back in the bowels of time and get the LZW Compression algorythm patented. LZW is the compression routine used to create fully compressed GIF's.

For a long time, Unisys didn't care who used it or attempt to charge royalties for it's use. Over a year ago they decided that they were going to begin charging licensing and royalty fees to companies and organizations who use the algorythm in their graphic software. GD, being an Open Source effort, didn't like this and moved to PNG (which is a much better format anyways).

There are still some copies of the pre-1.6.2 GD source floating around which supports GIF manipulation, and every so often someone builds a copy of the GD extension which supports GIF. However, as GD has never paid Unisys the licensing fee..... any GIF's created or manipulated using those extensions are in violation of patent and copyright laws. Therefore Unisys can sue any site owner/operator who is either using these illegally created images, or provides the ablity for others to create such images. Stay away from GIF manipulation using GD, it's not worth it in the long run.

-geoff

[Anon]

On http://www.boutell.com/gd/manual1.8.4.html it's said i need the .dlls for libpng und zlib.

the zlib.dll i've found.

but i still haven't got the libpng.

Would be nice if someone could mail the .dll @ [e-mail]

[mithril]

You don't need zlib.dll, etc. for GD on PHP..... just load php_gd.dll. Read this tutorial if you require further explantion:

http://www.hvt-automation.nl/yapf/index.php?cmd=viewitem&itemid=36

-geoff

[Anon]

i'll try, thx