Calls to imagettftext cause fatal error in php

[Chris Janton]

On 2008-07-05 , at 23:56 , Bill Hernandez wrote:

> I posted a bug report:
> http://bugs.php.net/bug.php?id=45437
> Bug #45437	Calls to imagettftext crash
>
> Same exact problem has been reported as Bug #44524, but has been  
> written off as bogus.
> IT IS NOT BOGUS...
> Problem:
> ------------
> Calls to imagettftext always fail with no error on Leopard 10.5.3
> when run under MacPorts Apache 2.2.6, PHP 5.2.5 and the GD library.
> Reproduce code:


I can see why they claim it is bogus.

PHP (5.2.6) produces the image just fine...

face at mac:Sites:133 $ which php
/opt/local/bin/php
face at mac:Sites:134 $ php --version
PHP 5.2.6 (cli) (built: May 25 2008 13:28:23)
Copyright (c) 1997-2008 The PHP Group
Zend Engine v2.2.0, Copyright (c) 1998-2008 Zend Technologies
face at mac:Sites:135 $ php foo.php >zippy.png
face at mac:Sites:136 $ ls -al zippy.png
-rw-r--r--  1 face  staff   892B Jul  6 05:33 zippy.png
face at mac:Sites:137 $ open zippy.png

Preview happily shows me the image.

I suspect the PHP folks will tell you that this is a problem with  
Apache, or the way that you have built Apache.

Note that I can run this example just fine with Apache 1.3.

Further investigation points to this page

	http://90kts.com/blog/2008/installing-gd-libraries-for-leopard-apache-php-525/

where you will find bits and pieces like...

"i have the same problem with ttf fonts… can someone help? this says  
the log file:
The process has forked and you cannot use this CoreFoundation  
functionality safely. You MUST exec().
Break on  
__THE_PROCESS_HAS_FORKED_AND_YOU_CANNOT_USE_THIS_COREFOUNDATION_FUNCTIONALITY___YOU_MUST_EXEC__ 
() to debug."

and

"I think the reason is posted here:
http://developer.apple.com/releasenotes/CoreFoundation/CoreFoundation.html

CoreFoundation and fork()

Due to the behavior of fork(), CoreFoundation cannot be used on the  
child-side of fork(). If you fork(), you must follow that with an  
exec*() call of some sort, and you should not use CoreFoundation APIs  
within the child, before the exec*(). The applies to all higher-level  
APIs which use CoreFoundation, and since you cannot know what those  
higher-level APIs are doing, and whether they are using CoreFoundation  
APIs, you should not use any higher-level APIs either. This includes  
use of the daemon() function."

SO - it boils down to getting the maintainer of freetype (Maintainers: ryandesign at macports.org 
) to look at the implications of the following configuration options



   --with-quickdraw-toolbox

                           use MacOS QuickDraw in ToolBox, if available

                           (default=yes)

   --with-quickdraw-carbon use MacOS QuickDraw in Carbon, if available

                           (default=yes)

and if they should be changed, or a variant made available for Leopard  
users.



Clear as mud?

8)

----------------------------------
Chris Janton  - face at CentosPrime dot COM
Netminder for Opus1.COM