Feature request: static avif libs

[Jan-E]

@cmb69 @morsssss
This repo, combined with php/php-src#7026 and php/php-src@81f6d36 results in building a php_gd.dll that is dependent on avif.dll. From the snapshot.txt of php-8.1.0alpha2-nts-Win32-vs16-x64.zip

Module: php_gd.dll
===========================
	avif.dll

I would prefer to keep php_gd.dll fully static, without external dependencies. Then 2 things are needed:

1. Build a static avif_a.lib which can be linked while building php_gd.dll in PHP 8.1+
2. Allow linking avif_a.lib in the gd extension of php-src

[Jan-E]

Building static libs for libavif is done in my fork of this repo:
https://github.com/Jan-E/libavif

See the resulting artifacts:
https://github.com/Jan-E/libavif/actions/runs/972759402#artifacts

[Jan-E]

Allow linking avif_a.lib in the gd extension of php-src needs a PR for php-src. I already prepared one:
https://github.com/Jan-E/php-src/commit/f8816e7fc81b2f5375769b6fe9ea441d81a8751c

[Jan-E]

I have built PHP 8.1 alpha2 with these changes:
https://www.apachelounge.com/viewtopic.php?t=6617

I also did run the tests. Example for x64, NTS:

=====================================================================
Number of tests :  275               269
Tests skipped   :    6 (  2.2%) --------
Tests warned    :    0 (  0.0%) (  0.0%)
Tests failed    :    0 (  0.0%) (  0.0%)
Tests passed    :  269 ( 97.8%) (100.0%)
---------------------------------------------------------------------
Time taken      :   56 seconds
=====================================================================

Skip reasons: requires extern GD, UTF-8 font file names not yet supported on Windows, only for external libgd < 2.2.4.

The avif decoding/encoding test [gd/tests/avif_decode_encode.phpt] takes a long time on my system (23-25 seconds), but there is no significant difference between the version with static libs and the version with an external avif.dll.

[cmb69]

I had build the dynamic avif.dll to avoid the hard-coded dependency on the codec. However, given that it is somewhat unlikely that we switch to another codec, building and using a static avif_a.lib may be fine as well. Do you want to provide a PR?

[Jan-E]

https://github.com/Jan-E/libavif needs a little bit of explaining.

1. While building the AV1 Codec library at https://aomedia.googlesource.com/aom for Windows a lot of libs are created. Some of them are in the artifacts of https://github.com/Jan-E/libavif/actions/runs/971607266
2. I could not find an easy way to build a 'fat' avif.lib which included all of the aom-code, so linking avif.lib and aom*.lib seemed the only option for php_gd.dll
3. As far as I know, aom.lib is the only one of all the aom*.lib's that needs to be linked in the php_gd.dll extension
4. On Windows we prefer avif_a.lib for a static lib, this in contrast to avif.lib which dynamically loads avif.dll
5. I made a tiny change to the CMakeLists.txt of libavif to make it produce a avif_a.lib: set(CMAKE_STATIC_LIBRARY_SUFFIX "_a.lib"). That would be a change that is specific for the winlibs repo. Effect was that I also needed to rename aom.lib to aom_a.lib during the bjuild process.

[Jan-E]

I had build the dynamic avif.dll to avoid the hard-coded dependency on the codec. However, given that it is somewhat unlikely that we switch to another codec, building and using a static avif_a.lib may be fine as well.

I was thinking the same. And besides that avif.dll would be the only external dependency of php_gd.dll. And the only external dependency of extensions that use a ADD_EXTENSION_DEP("other_ext", "gd", true) (like my php_ffmpeg.dll extension).

With php/php-src@f8816e7 in php/php-src#7200 it is easy to switch back to a dynamic avif.dll. If the dependent zips do not contain avif_a.lib and aom_a.lib, building will revert to avif.lib and avif.dll.

[Jan-E]

BTW: I have my doubts about the use of HAVE_LIBAVIF, because it only is a limited libavif with only 1 codec. Would not it be better to remove HAVE_LIBAVIF from config.m4 and config.w32 and change HAVE_LIBAVIF into HAVE_GD_AVIF in the extension code it self:
https://github.com/php/php-src/blob/81f6d36c90b8626660a6571cdc128265fa00697f/ext/gd/libgd/gd_avif.c#L16

@morsssss Would you comment on that?

[Jan-E]

Do you want to provide a PR?

Sure. The PR for php-src is here: php/php-src#7200
I will create a PR for this repo shortly.

[Jan-E]

I will create a PR for this repo shortly.

@cmb69 Do you want a separate branch, so you can still build avif.lib and avif.dll? Is so, can you create that branch?

[cmb69]

I think it's fine to switch to static.

[Jan-E]

PR for this repo: #2

[Jan-E]

The PR for php-src is here: php/php-src#7200

@krakjoe added the ‘Wating for review’ label to that PR. @cmb69 could you review it?

[cmb69]

The avif decoding/encoding test [gd/tests/avif_decode_encode.phpt] takes a long time on my system (23-25 seconds), […]

There is a ticket about this; I hope it will be resolved soon

Anyhow, PR #2 has been applied, so this can be closed.