Question

Currently if a user POST/uploads a photo to my PHP script I start out with some code like this

getimagesize($_FILES['picture1']['tmp_name']);

I then do a LOT more stuff to it but I am trying to also be able to get a photo from a URL and process it with my other existing code if I can. SO I am wanting to know, I f I use something like this

$image = ImageCreateFromString(file_get_contents($url));

Would I be able to then run getimagesize() on my $image variable?

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UPDATE

I just tried this…

$url = 'http://a0.twimg.com/a/1262802780/images/twitter_logo_header.png';
$image = imagecreatefromstring(file_get_contents($url));
$imageinfo = getimagesize($image);
print_r($imageinfo);

But it didnt work, gave this.

Warning: getimagesize(Resource id #4) [function.getimagesize]: failed to open stream: No such file or directory in

Any idea how I can do this or something similar to get the result I am after?

Answer 1

I suggest you follow this approach:

// if you need the image type
$type = exif_imagetype($url);

// if you need the image mime type
$type = image_type_to_mime_type(exif_imagetype($url));

// if you need the image extension associated with the mime type
$type = image_type_to_extension(exif_imagetype($url));

// if you don't care about the image type ignore all the above code
$image = ImageCreateFromString(file_get_contents($url));

echo ImageSX($image); // width
echo ImageSY($image); // height

Using exif_imagetype() is a lot faster than getimagesize(), the same goes for ImageSX() / ImageSY(), plus they don’t return arrays and can also return the correct image dimension after the image has been resized or cropped for instance.

Also, using getimagesize() on URLs isn’t good because it’ll consume much more bandwidth than the alternative exif_imagetype(), from the PHP Manual:

When a correct signature is found, the
appropriate constant value will be
returned otherwise the return value is
FALSE. The return value is the same
value that getimagesize() returns in
index 2 but exif_imagetype() is much
faster.

That’s because exif_imagetype() will only read the first few bytes of data.