vips-sys

English | Chinese Simplified

Low-level Rust FFI bindings for libvips. Provides the foundation for higher-level, safer wrappers.

Docs: https://houseme.github.io/vips-sys/vips_sys/
Requirement: libvips >= 8.2 (validated with 8.17.2)
Goal: stable builds, cross-platform reuse, and in-sync with upstream libvips

Installation

macOS
- brew install vips pkg-config
Debian/Ubuntu
- sudo apt-get install -y libvips-dev pkg-config
Windows (MSVC)
- vcpkg install vips and ensure the environment is visible to cargo

Make sure pkg-config --cflags --libs vips works (Windows linking via vcpkg).

Features and versions

Optional features
- static: prefer static linking
- dynamic: prefer dynamic linking (default)
- helpers: minimal safe helpers (init/shutdown/version)
Build-time exports
- LIBVIPS_VERSION: detected libvips version string
- cfg(vips_8_17): set when version >= 8.17 for conditional compilation upstream
Versioned bindings
- Default to OUT_DIR/binding.rs
- Compatible path: include versioned outputs when needed (e.g. binding_8_74.rs)

Usage example (with `helpers`)

use vips_sys::helpers;

fn main() {
    helpers::init("vips-sys-example").expect("vips init failed");
    let ver = helpers::version();
    println!("libvips version: {}.{}.{}", ver.0, ver.1, ver.2);
    helpers::shutdown();
}

Cargo snippet:

[dependencies]
vips-sys = { version = "0.1.3-beta.1", features = ["helpers"] }

Build notes

This crate uses bindgen at build time:

Discover include paths via pkg-config and pass them to clang
Disable layout_tests, enable rustified_enum(".*")
Use blocklist_* to avoid platform conflicts

Environment variables:

PKG_CONFIG_PATH: search path for pkg-config (e.g. macOS M1: /opt/homebrew/lib/pkgconfig)
LIBVIPS_NO_BINDGEN: skip bindgen and reuse existing output
BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS: extra clang args (e.g. additional -I)
LIBCLANG_PATH: location of libclang (e.g. local LLVM)

Troubleshooting

vips not found:
- Ensure libvips and pkg-config are installed (or vcpkg on Windows)
- Check PKG_CONFIG_PATH contains the directory of vips.pc
Bindings generation fails:
- Set LIBCLANG_PATH to a valid libclang
- Add missing -I paths via BINDGEN_EXTRA_CLANG_ARGS
Static linking issues (macOS):
- Prefer dynamic linking or review known Homebrew caveats

License

MIT

Changelog

See CHANGELOG.md.

vips-sys 0.1.3-beta.1