Stream write image to API response body

[benconda]

Hello,

I'm using libvips to generate an image, then returning the image through an API. It's a 2 step mechanism that write to a temporary file and then return the file content to the Response body.

I wonder if I can stream the image to the API response body directly, like a streaming feature?
I see some related thing with custom Targets, have you an already existing example on how to achieve this ?

Thank you 🙏

[jcupitt]

Hello @benconda, yes, it should be easy, though I'm a bit vague about exactly how to do this in php, I'm sure you know better than me.

There's a streaming example here:

https://github.com/libvips/php-vips/blob/master/examples/streaming-custom.php

That uses Vips\TargetCustom to make a target that writes to a file, then calls $image->writeToTarget($target) to send the bytes.

I think all you need to do is use TargetCustom to connect to a php stream instead:

https://www.php.net/manual/en/streamwrapper.stream-write.php

And you should be able to write the bytes directly to the user.

You can also do things like read and write images directly to and from API endpoints like S3 with no buffering, which can be handy.