I added a section of the site where the images are dynamically generated by GD. The way I was populating the images was making the src="nameofperlscript.pl?node=image&file=blah". However, since the script to create the images and the webpage is the same it seems silly to have to call the script again (especially since some pages have more than one dynamic image). I would like to load it all in one shot. Is there a way to actually passed the image data directly?

Have the script write the images out to files, and then put the generated image URLs in your HTML? Add a cron job to clean up old images every so often and all done.

Hello,

I know it is over a year later, but this post helped me solve my own problem - wanting to create various sizes of images, or even to scale images to a constant size.

It sounds like since your script generates HTML and images both, you want a way to embed the binary images into the HTML. I am not sure I know of a way to do that. I have done scripts where you use a parameter to trigger an image or HTML based upon the value of the parameter, and then just call the script with the parameter indicating "image" from the page generated by the script in "HTML" mode.

Or, you could split the script into two separate scripts. I know, not very clean.

For those interested in my resizing-on-the-fly solution, it is here:


#!/usr/local/bin/perl

# Usage: http://www.yoururl.com/cgi-bin/image_resize.cgi?FILE=/path/to
+/image.jpg&SIZE=300

use Image::Resize;
use Image::Size;
use CGI::Simple;

my $q = new CGI::Simple;
my $file = $q->param('FILE'); # Path to file on server file system
my $size = $q->param('SIZE'); # Desired size of image

my ($x, $y, $type) = imgsize($file);
$size = ($x > $y) ? $x : $y if (($x < $size) || ($y < $size));
    # Will not scale greater than 100%

my $image = Image::Resize->new($file);
my $gd = $image->resize($size, $size, 1); # 1 = maintain aspect ratio
binmode STDOUT;
if ((uc($type) eq 'JPG') || (uc($type) eq 'JPEG'))
    {
    print(qq|Content-Type: image/jpeg\n\n|);
    print $gd->jpeg();
    }
elsif (uc($type) eq 'PNG')
    {
    print(qq|Content-Type: image/png\n\n|);
    print $gd->png();
    }
elsif (uc($type) eq 'GIF')
    {
    print(qq|Content-Type: image/gif\n\n|);
    print $gd->gif();
    }
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I hope this is useful to someone. Enjoy!

Regards,

Mark, Webberville, Michigan USA

I seem to remember having seen people achieve something similar with JavaScript. I'm not really sure. Whatever, even if so then the same portability problems would arise...

I have used preloading of images in javascript on some pretty big sites. It is worth a look. SOmething similar can be done with CSS.

jdtoronto

Hrm... I guess I will just leave it be for now. Thanks for the info!

Dude.. make one scripts like image.cgi which spits out the image and your html.cgi or any html will call it like  <img src="/cgi-bin/image.cgi?yup">

do some testing with the image.cgi first via htp see if it does what you want

here.. i made this script that spits out text to screen.. You just have to tweak where on your server the ttf file is .. etc. This script is not fully complete.. but.. it works!

#!/usr/bin/perl -wT
use strict;
use Image::Magick;
use CGI;


my $conf = {    
    font_size => 8,                             
        font_name=>'/srv/www/htdocs-devel/lib/kroe0555.ttf',
    img_type=>'png',    
    
};




my $t = new CGI();
my $string = $t->param('string'); $string ||='leocharre';
$$conf{string} = untaint( $string ); # attempt untaint 






$$conf{img_height} = int($$conf{font_size}*1.33)  ;
$$conf{img_width} = ( length($$conf{string}) * int($$conf{font_size}*0
+.8) );

my $bgcolor = $t->param('bgcolor');
my $fgcolor = $t->param('fgcolor');

$bgcolor ||='#fff';
$fgcolor ||='#000';

$$conf{bgcolor} = untaint_color($bgcolor);
$$conf{fgcolor} = untaint_color($fgcolor);






generate_img($conf);

show_and_exit($conf);







sub show_and_exit {
    my $conf = shift;
    # read in image and output to browser
    print(qq|Content-Type: image/$$conf{img_type}\n\n|);
    binmode STDOUT;
    $$conf{img}->Write($$conf{img_type}.':-');
    exit;
}



sub generate_img{      
    my $conf = shift;
    
    $$conf{img} = Image::Magick->new;     
    $$conf{img}->Set(size => $$conf{img_width}."x".$$conf{img_height})
+;
    $$conf{img}->ReadImage('xc:'.$$conf{bgcolor});
    $$conf{img}->Annotate(
        font=>            $$conf{font_name}, 
        pointsize=>        $$conf{font_size}, 
        fill=>            $$conf{fgcolor}, 
        text=>            $$conf{string}, 
        gravity=>        'center' 
    );    
} 



sub untaint {
    my $string= shift;

    if ($string=~/^([a-zA-Z0-9 \.\:\[\]\{\}\+\-_]+)$/){
        return $1;
    }
    die ("don't like some chars here = [$string]");    
}

sub untaint_color {
    my $color = shift;
    if ($color=~/^([\d\w#]{3,7})$/){
        return $1;
    }
    die ("the heck kind of color is this? [$color]");
}
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