Re: 'pngread' and 'jpgread' usage?

[John W. Eaton]

On  8-Jun-2009, Søren Hauberg wrote:

| man, 08 06 2009 kl. 10:42 -0400, skrev Przemek Klosowski:
| > to hear from users about the usage of 'pngread', 'jpgread', and the
| >    corresponding 'write' functions. Does anybody actually use these
| >    functions? I'm considering removing them in the future as they require
| >    external libraries, but I don't see them adding any value as the
| >    'imread' and 'imwrite' functions should cover the same use-cases.
| > 
| > It looks like I am going to ask a stupid question, but if
| > im{read,write} read the png/jpeg images, don't they need the same
| > external libraries?  
| 
| You would think so, but actually they don't. im{read,write} use the
| GraphicsMagick library whereas the png/jpg functions use 'libjpeg' and
| 'libpng'.

I think the GraphicsMagick library ultimately uses libpng and libjpeg
to read/write png and jpeg files.

| > Of course having im* service all the formats is preferable to
| > one-routine-per-format, so that alone is a good reason to drop 
| > {png,jpg}*() routines.
| 
| I agree. However, it might be that some people have use-cases that
| require the png/jpg functions. I can't think of such use-cases, but
| that's why I'm asking :-)

I'd say remove them.

jwe