GDK-PixBuf Reference Manual: The GdkPixbuf Structure

## The GdkPixbuf Structure The GdkPixbuf Structure — Information that describes an image. |

## Functions

GdkColorspace | gdk_pixbuf_get_colorspace ()
int | gdk_pixbuf_get_n_channels ()
gboolean | gdk_pixbuf_get_has_alpha ()
int | gdk_pixbuf_get_bits_per_sample ()
guchar * | gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels ()
guchar * | gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels_with_length ()
int | gdk_pixbuf_get_width ()
int | gdk_pixbuf_get_height ()
int | gdk_pixbuf_get_rowstride ()
gsize | gdk_pixbuf_get_byte_length ()
const gchar * | gdk_pixbuf_get_option ()

## Properties

gint | bits-per-sample | Read / Write / Construct Only
GdkColorspace | colorspace | Read / Write / Construct Only
gboolean | has-alpha | Read / Write / Construct Only
gint | height | Read / Write / Construct Only
gint | n-channels | Read / Write / Construct Only
gpointer | pixels | Read / Write / Construct Only
gint | rowstride | Read / Write / Construct Only
gint | width | Read / Write / Construct Only

## Types and Values

enum | GdkPixbufError
#define | GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR
enum | GdkColorspace
enum | GdkPixbufAlphaMode
| GdkPixbuf

## Object Hierarchy

        GObject
        ╰── GdkPixbuf

## Implemented Interfaces

GdkPixbuf implements GIcon and GLoadableIcon.

## Includes

    #include <gdk-pixbuf/gdk-pixbuf.h>

## Description

The GdkPixbuf structure contains information that describes an image in memory.

#### Image Data

Image data in a pixbuf is stored in memory in uncompressed, packed format. Rows in the image are stored top to bottom, and in each row pixels are stored from left to right. There may be padding at the end of a row. The "rowstride" value of a pixbuf, as returned by `gdk_pixbuf_get_rowstride()`, indicates the number of bytes between rows.

#### put_pixel() Example

The following code illustrates a simple `put_pixel()` function for RGB pixbufs with 8 bits per channel with an alpha channel. It is not included in the gdk-pixbuf library for performance reasons; rather than making several function calls for each pixel, your own code can take shortcuts.

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    static void
    put_pixel (GdkPixbuf *pixbuf, int x, int y, guchar red, guchar green, guchar blue, guchar alpha)
    {
      int width, height, rowstride, n_channels;
      guchar *pixels, *p;

      n_channels = gdk_pixbuf_get_n_channels (pixbuf);

      g_assert (gdk_pixbuf_get_colorspace (pixbuf) == GDK_COLORSPACE_RGB);
      g_assert (gdk_pixbuf_get_bits_per_sample (pixbuf) == 8);
      g_assert (gdk_pixbuf_get_has_alpha (pixbuf));
      g_assert (n_channels == 4);

      width = gdk_pixbuf_get_width (pixbuf);
      height = gdk_pixbuf_get_height (pixbuf);

      g_assert (x >= 0 && x < width);
      g_assert (y >= 0 && y < height);

      rowstride = gdk_pixbuf_get_rowstride (pixbuf);
      pixels = gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels (pixbuf);

      p = pixels + y * rowstride + x * n_channels;
      p[0] = red;
      p[1] = green;
      p[2] = blue;
      p[3] = alpha;
    }

This function will not work for pixbufs with images that are other than 8 bits per sample or channel, but it will work for most of the pixbufs that GTK+ uses.

If you are doing `memcpy()` of raw pixbuf data, note that the last row in the pixbuf may not be as wide as the full rowstride, but rather just as wide as the pixel data needs to be. That is, it is unsafe to do `memcpy (dest, pixels, rowstride * height)` to copy a whole pixbuf. Use `gdk_pixbuf_copy()` instead, or compute the width in bytes of the last row as `width * ((n_channels * bits_per_sample + 7) / 8)`.

## Functions

### gdk_pixbuf_get_colorspace ()

    GdkColorspace
    gdk_pixbuf_get_colorspace (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries the color space of a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

Color space.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_n_channels ()

    int
    gdk_pixbuf_get_n_channels (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries the number of channels of a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

Number of channels.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_has_alpha ()

    gboolean
    gdk_pixbuf_get_has_alpha (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries whether a pixbuf has an alpha channel (opacity information).

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

`TRUE` if it has an alpha channel, `FALSE` otherwise.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_bits_per_sample ()

    int
    gdk_pixbuf_get_bits_per_sample (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries the number of bits per color sample in a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

Number of bits per color sample.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels ()

    guchar *
    gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries a pointer to the pixel data of a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

A pointer to the pixbuf's pixel data. Please see the section on image data for information about how the pixel data is stored in memory.

[array]

### gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels_with_length ()

    guchar *
    gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels_with_length (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf,
                                       guint *length);

Queries a pointer to the pixel data of a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |
length | The length of the binary data. | [out]

#### Returns

A pointer to the pixbuf's pixel data. Please see the section on image data for information about how the pixel data is stored in memory.

Rename to: gdk_pixbuf_get_pixels.

[array length=length]

Since 2.26

### gdk_pixbuf_get_width ()

    int
    gdk_pixbuf_get_width (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries the width of a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

Width in pixels.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_height ()

    int
    gdk_pixbuf_get_height (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries the height of a pixbuf.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

Height in pixels.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_rowstride ()

    int
    gdk_pixbuf_get_rowstride (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Queries the rowstride of a pixbuf, which is the number of bytes between the start of a row and the start of the next row.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf. |

#### Returns

Distance between row starts.

### gdk_pixbuf_get_byte_length ()

    gsize
    gdk_pixbuf_get_byte_length (const GdkPixbuf *pixbuf);

Returns the length of the pixel data, in bytes.

#### Parameters

pixbuf | A pixbuf |

#### Returns

The length of the pixel data.

Since 2.26

### gdk_pixbuf_get_option ()

    const gchar *
    gdk_pixbuf_get_option (GdkPixbuf *pixbuf,
                           const gchar *key);

Looks up `key` in the list of options that may have been attached to the `pixbuf` when it was loaded, or that may have been attached by another function using `gdk_pixbuf_set_option()`.

For instance, the ANI loader provides "Title" and "Artist" options. The ICO, XBM, and XPM loaders provide "x_hot" and "y_hot" hot-spot options for cursor definitions. The PNG loader provides the tEXt ancillary chunk key/value pairs as options. Since 2.12, the TIFF and JPEG loaders return an "orientation" option string that corresponds to the embedded TIFF/Exif orientation tag (if present).

#### Parameters

pixbuf | a GdkPixbuf |
key | a nul-terminated string. |

#### Returns

the value associated with `key` . This is a nul-terminated string that should not be freed or `NULL` if `key` was not found.

## Types and Values

### enum GdkPixbufError

An error code in the GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR domain. Many gdk-pixbuf operations can cause errors in this domain, or in the G_FILE_ERROR domain.

#### Members

GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR_CORRUPT_IMAGE | An image file was broken somehow. |
GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR_INSUFFICIENT_MEMORY | Not enough memory. |
GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR_BAD_OPTION | A bad option was passed to a pixbuf save module. |
GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR_UNKNOWN_TYPE | Unknown image type. |
GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR_UNSUPPORTED_OPERATION | Don't know how to perform the given operation on the type of image at hand. |
GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR_FAILED | Generic failure code, something went wrong. |

### GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR

    #define GDK_PIXBUF_ERROR gdk_pixbuf_error_quark ()

Error domain used for pixbuf operations. Indicates that the error code will be in the GdkPixbufError enumeration. See GError for information on error domains and error codes.

### enum GdkColorspace

This enumeration defines the color spaces that are supported by the gdk-pixbuf library. Currently only RGB is supported.

#### Members

GDK_COLORSPACE_RGB | Indicates a red/green/blue additive color space. |

### enum GdkPixbufAlphaMode

These values can be passed to `gdk_pixbuf_render_to_drawable_alpha()` to control how the alpha channel of an image should be handled. This function can create a bilevel clipping mask (black and white) and use it while painting the image. In the future, when the X Window System gets an alpha channel extension, it will be possible to do full alpha compositing onto arbitrary drawables. For now both cases fall back to a bilevel clipping mask.

#### Members

GDK_PIXBUF_ALPHA_BILEVEL | A bilevel clipping mask (black and white) will be created and used to draw the image. Pixels below 0.5 opacity will be considered fully transparent, and all others will be considered fully opaque. |
GDK_PIXBUF_ALPHA_FULL | For now falls back to GDK_PIXBUF_ALPHA_BILEVEL. In the future it will do full alpha compositing. |

### GdkPixbuf

    typedef struct _GdkPixbuf GdkPixbuf;

This is the main structure in the gdk-pixbuf library. It is used to represent images. It contains information about the image's pixel data, its color space, bits per sample, width and height, and the rowstride (the number of bytes between the start of one row and the start of the next).

## Property Details

### The `“bits-per-sample”` property

      “bits-per-sample”          gint

The number of bits per sample. Currently only 8 bit per sample are supported.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Allowed values: [1,16]

Default value: 8

### The `“colorspace”` property

      “colorspace”               GdkColorspace

The colorspace in which the samples are interpreted.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Default value: GDK_COLORSPACE_RGB

### The `“has-alpha”` property

      “has-alpha”                gboolean

Whether the pixbuf has an alpha channel.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Default value: FALSE

### The `“height”` property

      “height”                   gint

The number of rows of the pixbuf.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Allowed values: >= 1

Default value: 1

### The `“n-channels”` property

      “n-channels”               gint

The number of samples per pixel. Currently, only 3 or 4 samples per pixel are supported.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Allowed values: >= 0

Default value: 3

### The `“pixels”` property

      “pixels”                   gpointer

A pointer to the pixel data of the pixbuf.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

### The `“rowstride”` property

      “rowstride”                gint

The number of bytes between the start of a row and the start of the next row. This number must (obviously) be at least as large as the width of the pixbuf.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Allowed values: >= 1

Default value: 1

### The `“width”` property

      “width”                    gint

The number of columns of the pixbuf.

Flags: Read / Write / Construct Only

Allowed values: >= 1

Default value: 1