NOTE:  This file was modified by The libjpeg-turbo Project to include only

information relevant to libjpeg-turbo and to wordsmith certain sections.

USAGE instructions for the Independent JPEG Group's JPEG software

=================================================================

This file describes usage of the JPEG conversion programs cjpeg and djpeg,

as well as the utility programs jpegtran, rdjpgcom and wrjpgcom.  (See

the other documentation files if you wish to use the JPEG library within

your own programs.)

If you are on a Unix machine you may prefer to read the Unix-style manual

pages in files cjpeg.1, djpeg.1, jpegtran.1, rdjpgcom.1, wrjpgcom.1.

INTRODUCTION

These programs implement JPEG image encoding, decoding, and transcoding.

JPEG (pronounced "jay-peg") is a standardized compression method for

full-color and grayscale images.

GENERAL USAGE

We provide two programs, cjpeg to compress an image file into JPEG format,

and djpeg to decompress a JPEG file back into a conventional image format.

On Unix-like systems, you say:

        cjpeg [switches] [imagefile] >jpegfile

or

        djpeg [switches] [jpegfile]  >imagefile

The programs read the specified input file, or standard input if none is

named.  They always write to standard output (with trace/error messages to

standard error).  These conventions are handy for piping images between

programs.

On most non-Unix systems, you say:

        cjpeg [switches] imagefile jpegfile

or

        djpeg [switches] jpegfile  imagefile

i.e., both the input and output files are named on the command line.  This

style is a little more foolproof, and it loses no functionality if you don't

have pipes.  (You can get this style on Unix too, if you prefer, by defining

TWO_FILE_COMMANDLINE when you compile the programs; see install.txt.)

You can also say:

        cjpeg [switches] -outfile jpegfile  imagefile

or

        djpeg [switches] -outfile imagefile  jpegfile

This syntax works on all systems, so it is useful for scripts.

The currently supported image file formats are: PPM (PBMPLUS color format),

PGM (PBMPLUS grayscale format), BMP, Targa, and RLE (Utah Raster Toolkit

format).  (RLE is supported only if the URT library is available, which it

isn't on most non-Unix systems.)  cjpeg recognizes the input image format

automatically, with the exception of some Targa files.  You have to tell djpeg

which format to generate.

JPEG files are in the defacto standard JFIF file format.  There are other,

less widely used JPEG-based file formats, but we don't support them.

All switch names may be abbreviated; for example, -grayscale may be written

-gray or -gr.  Most of the "basic" switches can be abbreviated to as little as

one letter.  Upper and lower case are equivalent (-BMP is the same as -bmp).

British spellings are also accepted (e.g., -greyscale), though for brevity

these are not mentioned below.

CJPEG DETAILS

The basic command line switches for cjpeg are:

        -quality N[,...]  Scale quantization tables to adjust image quality.

                          Quality is 0 (worst) to 100 (best); default is 75.

                          (See below for more info.)

        -grayscale      Create monochrome JPEG file from color input.

                        Be sure to use this switch when compressing a grayscale

                        BMP file, because cjpeg isn't bright enough to notice

                        whether a BMP file uses only shades of gray.  By

                        saying -grayscale, you'll get a smaller JPEG file that

                        takes less time to process.

        -rgb            Create RGB JPEG file.

                        Using this switch suppresses the conversion from RGB

                        colorspace input to the default YCbCr JPEG colorspace.

        -optimize       Perform optimization of entropy encoding parameters.

                        Without this, default encoding parameters are used.

                        -optimize usually makes the JPEG file a little smaller,

                        but cjpeg runs somewhat slower and needs much more

                        memory.  Image quality and speed of decompression are

                        unaffected by -optimize.

        -progressive    Create progressive JPEG file (see below).

        -targa          Input file is Targa format.  Targa files that contain

                        an "identification" field will not be automatically

                        recognized by cjpeg; for such files you must specify

                        -targa to make cjpeg treat the input as Targa format.

                        For most Targa files, you won't need this switch.

The -quality switch lets you trade off compressed file size against quality of

the reconstructed image: the higher the quality setting, the larger the JPEG

file, and the closer the output image will be to the original input.  Normally

you want to use the lowest quality setting (smallest file) that decompresses

into something visually indistinguishable from the original image.  For this

purpose the quality setting should generally be between 50 and 95 (the default

is 75) for photographic images.  If you see defects at -quality 75, then go up

5 or 10 counts at a time until you are happy with the output image.  (The

optimal setting will vary from one image to another.)

-quality 100 will generate a quantization table of all 1's, minimizing loss

in the quantization step (but there is still information loss in subsampling,

as well as roundoff error.)  For most images, specifying a quality value above

about 95 will increase the size of the compressed file dramatically, and while

the quality gain from these higher quality values is measurable (using metrics

such as PSNR or SSIM), it is rarely perceivable by human vision.

In the other direction, quality values below 50 will produce very small files

of low image quality.  Settings around 5 to 10 might be useful in preparing an

index of a large image library, for example.  Try -quality 2 (or so) for some

amusing Cubist effects.  (Note: quality values below about 25 generate 2-byte

quantization tables, which are considered optional in the JPEG standard.

cjpeg emits a warning message when you give such a quality value, because some

other JPEG programs may be unable to decode the resulting file.  Use -baseline

if you need to ensure compatibility at low quality values.)

The -quality option has been extended in this version of cjpeg to support

separate quality settings for luminance and chrominance (or, in general,

separate settings for every quantization table slot.)  The principle is the

same as chrominance subsampling:  since the human eye is more sensitive to

spatial changes in brightness than spatial changes in color, the chrominance

components can be quantized more than the luminance components without

incurring any visible image quality loss.  However, unlike subsampling, this

feature reduces data in the frequency domain instead of the spatial domain,

which allows for more fine-grained control.  This option is useful in

quality-sensitive applications, for which the artifacts generated by

subsampling may be unacceptable.

The -quality option accepts a comma-separated list of parameters, which

respectively refer to the quality levels that should be assigned to the

quantization table slots.  If there are more q-table slots than parameters,

then the last parameter is replicated.  Thus, if only one quality parameter is

given, this is used for both luminance and chrominance (slots 0 and 1,

respectively), preserving the legacy behavior of cjpeg v6b and prior.  More (or

customized) quantization tables can be set with the -qtables option and

assigned to components with the -qslots option (see the "wizard" switches

below.)

JPEG  files  generated  with separate luminance and chrominance quality are

fully compliant with standard JPEG decoders.

CAUTION: For this setting to be useful, be sure to pass an argument of

-sample 1x1 to cjpeg to disable chrominance subsampling.  Otherwise, the

default subsampling level (2x2, AKA "4:2:0") will be used.

The -progressive switch creates a "progressive JPEG" file.  In this type of

JPEG file, the data is stored in multiple scans of increasing quality.  If the

file is being transmitted over a slow communications link, the decoder can use

the first scan to display a low-quality image very quickly, and can then

improve the display with each subsequent scan.  The final image is exactly

equivalent to a standard JPEG file of the same quality setting, and the total

file size is about the same --- often a little smaller.

Switches for advanced users:

        -arithmetic     Use arithmetic coding.  CAUTION: arithmetic coded JPEG

                        is not yet widely implemented, so many decoders will

                        be unable to view an arithmetic coded JPEG file at

                        all.

        -dct int        Use accurate integer DCT method (default).

        -dct fast       Use less accurate integer DCT method [legacy feature].

                        When the Independent JPEG Group's software was first

                        released in 1991, the compression time for a

                        1-megapixel JPEG image on a mainstream PC was measured

                        in minutes.  Thus, the fast integer DCT algorithm

                        provided noticeable performance benefits.  On modern

                        CPUs running libjpeg-turbo, however, the compression

                        time for a 1-megapixel JPEG image is measured in

                        milliseconds, and thus the performance benefits of the

                        fast algorithm are much less noticeable.  On modern

                        x86/x86-64 CPUs that support AVX2 instructions, the

                        fast and int methods have similar performance.  On

                        other types of CPUs, the fast method is generally about

                        5-15% faster than the int method.

                        For quality levels of 90 and below, there should be

                        little or no perceptible quality difference between the

                        two algorithms.  For quality levels above 90, however,

                        the difference between the fast and int methods becomes

                        more pronounced.  With quality=97, for instance, the

                        fast method incurs generally about a 1-3 dB loss in

                        PSNR relative to the int method, but this can be larger

                        for some images.  Do not use the fast method with

                        quality levels above 97.  The algorithm often

                        degenerates at quality=98 and above and can actually

                        produce a more lossy image than if lower quality levels

                        had been used.  Also, in libjpeg-turbo, the fast method

                        is not fully accelerated for quality levels above 97,

                        so it will be slower than the int method.

        -dct float      Use floating-point DCT method [legacy feature].

                        The float method does not produce significantly more

                        accurate results than the int method, and it is much

                        slower.  The float method may also give different

                        results on different machines due to varying roundoff

                        behavior, whereas the integer methods should give the

                        same results on all machines.

        -restart N      Emit a JPEG restart marker every N MCU rows, or every

                        N MCU blocks if "B" is attached to the number.

                        -restart 0 (the default) means no restart markers.

        -smooth N       Smooth the input image to eliminate dithering noise.

                        N, ranging from 1 to 100, indicates the strength of

                        smoothing.  0 (the default) means no smoothing.

        -maxmemory N    Set limit for amount of memory to use in processing

                        large images.  Value is in thousands of bytes, or

                        millions of bytes if "M" is attached to the number.

                        For example, -max 4m selects 4000000 bytes.  If more

                        space is needed, an error will occur.

        -verbose        Enable debug printout.  More -v's give more printout.

        or  -debug      Also, version information is printed at startup.

The -restart option inserts extra markers that allow a JPEG decoder to

resynchronize after a transmission error.  Without restart markers, any damage

to a compressed file will usually ruin the image from the point of the error

to the end of the image; with restart markers, the damage is usually confined

to the portion of the image up to the next restart marker.  Of course, the

restart markers occupy extra space.  We recommend -restart 1 for images that

will be transmitted across unreliable networks such as Usenet.

The -smooth option filters the input to eliminate fine-scale noise.  This is

often useful when converting dithered images to JPEG: a moderate smoothing

factor of 10 to 50 gets rid of dithering patterns in the input file, resulting

in a smaller JPEG file and a better-looking image.  Too large a smoothing

factor will visibly blur the image, however.

Switches for wizards:

        -baseline       Force baseline-compatible quantization tables to be

                        generated.  This clamps quantization values to 8 bits

                        even at low quality settings.  (This switch is poorly

                        named, since it does not ensure that the output is

                        actually baseline JPEG.  For example, you can use

                        -baseline and -progressive together.)

        -qtables file   Use the quantization tables given in the specified

                        text file.

        -qslots N[,...] Select which quantization table to use for each color

                        component.

        -sample HxV[,...]  Set JPEG sampling factors for each color component.

        -scans file     Use the scan script given in the specified text file.

The "wizard" switches are intended for experimentation with JPEG.  If you

don't know what you are doing, DON'T USE THEM.  These switches are documented

further in the file wizard.txt.

DJPEG DETAILS

The basic command line switches for djpeg are:

        -colors N       Reduce image to at most N colors.  This reduces the

        or -quantize N  number of colors used in the output image, so that it

                        can be displayed on a colormapped display or stored in

                        a colormapped file format.  For example, if you have

                        an 8-bit display, you'd need to reduce to 256 or fewer

                        colors.  (-colors is the recommended name, -quantize

                        is provided only for backwards compatibility.)

        -fast           Select recommended processing options for fast, low

                        quality output.  (The default options are chosen for

                        highest quality output.)  Currently, this is equivalent

                        to "-dct fast -nosmooth -onepass -dither ordered".

        -grayscale      Force grayscale output even if JPEG file is color.

                        Useful for viewing on monochrome displays; also,

                        djpeg runs noticeably faster in this mode.

        -rgb            Force RGB output even if JPEG file is grayscale.

        -scale M/N      Scale the output image by a factor M/N.  Currently

                        the scale factor must be M/8, where M is an integer

                        between 1 and 16 inclusive, or any reduced fraction

                        thereof (such as 1/2, 3/4, etc.  Scaling is handy if

                        the image is larger than your screen; also, djpeg runs

                        much faster when scaling down the output.

        -bmp            Select BMP output format (Windows flavor).  8-bit

                        colormapped format is emitted if -colors or -grayscale

                        is specified, or if the JPEG file is grayscale;

                        otherwise, 24-bit full-color format is emitted.

        -gif            Select GIF output format.  Since GIF does not support

                        more than 256 colors, -colors 256 is assumed (unless

                        you specify a smaller number of colors).  If you

                        specify -fast, the default number of colors is 216.

        -os2            Select BMP output format (OS/2 1.x flavor).  8-bit

                        colormapped format is emitted if -colors or -grayscale

                        is specified, or if the JPEG file is grayscale;

                        otherwise, 24-bit full-color format is emitted.

        -pnm            Select PBMPLUS (PPM/PGM) output format (this is the

                        default format).  PGM is emitted if the JPEG file is

                        grayscale or if -grayscale is specified; otherwise

                        PPM is emitted.

        -rle            Select RLE output format.  (Requires URT library.)

        -targa          Select Targa output format.  Grayscale format is

                        emitted if the JPEG file is grayscale or if

                        -grayscale is specified; otherwise, colormapped format

                        is emitted if -colors is specified; otherwise, 24-bit

                        full-color format is emitted.

Switches for advanced users:

        -dct int        Use accurate integer DCT method (default).

        -dct fast       Use less accurate integer DCT method [legacy feature].

                        When the Independent JPEG Group's software was first

                        released in 1991, the decompression time for a

                        1-megapixel JPEG image on a mainstream PC was measured

                        in minutes.  Thus, the fast integer DCT algorithm

                        provided noticeable performance benefits.  On modern

                        CPUs running libjpeg-turbo, however, the decompression

                        time for a 1-megapixel JPEG image is measured in

                        milliseconds, and thus the performance benefits of the

                        fast algorithm are much less noticeable.  On modern

                        x86/x86-64 CPUs that support AVX2 instructions, the

                        fast and int methods have similar performance.  On

                        other types of CPUs, the fast method is generally about

                        5-15% faster than the int method.

                        If the JPEG image was compressed using a quality level

                        of 85 or below, then there should be little or no

                        perceptible quality difference between the two

                        algorithms.  When decompressing images that were

                        compressed using quality levels above 85, however, the

                        difference between the fast and int methods becomes

                        more pronounced.  With images compressed using

                        quality=97, for instance, the fast method incurs

                        generally about a 4-6 dB loss in PSNR relative to the

                        int method, but this can be larger for some images.  If

                        you can avoid it, do not use the fast method when

                        decompressing images that were compressed using quality

                        levels above 97.  The algorithm often degenerates for

                        such images and can actually produce a more lossy

                        output image than if the JPEG image had been compressed

                        using lower quality levels.

        -dct float      Use floating-point DCT method [legacy feature].

                        The float method does not produce significantly more

                        accurate results than the int method, and it is much

                        slower.  The float method may also give different

                        results on different machines due to varying roundoff

                        behavior, whereas the integer methods should give the

                        same results on all machines.

        -dither fs      Use Floyd-Steinberg dithering in color quantization.

        -dither ordered Use ordered dithering in color quantization.

        -dither none    Do not use dithering in color quantization.

                        By default, Floyd-Steinberg dithering is applied when

                        quantizing colors; this is slow but usually produces

                        the best results.  Ordered dither is a compromise

                        between speed and quality; no dithering is fast but

                        usually looks awful.  Note that these switches have

                        no effect unless color quantization is being done.

                        Ordered dither is only available in -onepass mode.

        -map FILE       Quantize to the colors used in the specified image

                        file.  This is useful for producing multiple files

                        with identical color maps, or for forcing a predefined

                        set of colors to be used.  The FILE must be a GIF

                        or PPM file.  This option overrides -colors and

                        -onepass.

        -nosmooth       Use a faster, lower-quality upsampling routine.

        -onepass        Use one-pass instead of two-pass color quantization.

                        The one-pass method is faster and needs less memory,

                        but it produces a lower-quality image.  -onepass is

                        ignored unless you also say -colors N.  Also,

                        the one-pass method is always used for grayscale

                        output (the two-pass method is no improvement then).

        -maxmemory N    Set limit for amount of memory to use in processing

                        large images.  Value is in thousands of bytes, or

                        millions of bytes if "M" is attached to the number.

                        For example, -max 4m selects 4000000 bytes.  If more

                        space is needed, an error will occur.

        -verbose        Enable debug printout.  More -v's give more printout.

        or  -debug      Also, version information is printed at startup.

HINTS FOR CJPEG

Color GIF files are not the ideal input for JPEG; JPEG is really intended for

compressing full-color (24-bit) images.  In particular, don't try to convert

cartoons, line drawings, and other images that have only a few distinct

colors.  GIF works great on these, JPEG does not.  If you want to convert a

GIF to JPEG, you should experiment with cjpeg's -quality and -smooth options

to get a satisfactory conversion.  -smooth 10 or so is often helpful.

Avoid running an image through a series of JPEG compression/decompression

cycles.  Image quality loss will accumulate; after ten or so cycles the image

may be noticeably worse than it was after one cycle.  It's best to use a

lossless format while manipulating an image, then convert to JPEG format when

you are ready to file the image away.

The -optimize option to cjpeg is worth using when you are making a "final"

version for posting or archiving.  It's also a win when you are using low

quality settings to make very small JPEG files; the percentage improvement

is often a lot more than it is on larger files.  (At present, -optimize

mode is always selected when generating progressive JPEG files.)

Support for GIF input files was removed in cjpeg v6b due to concerns over

the Unisys LZW patent.  Although this patent expired in 2006, cjpeg still

lacks GIF support, for these historical reasons.  (Conversion of GIF files to

JPEG is usually a bad idea anyway.)

HINTS FOR DJPEG

To get a quick preview of an image, use the -grayscale and/or -scale switches.

"-grayscale -scale 1/8" is the fastest case.

Several options are available that trade off image quality to gain speed.

"-fast" turns on the recommended settings.

"-dct fast" and/or "-nosmooth" gain speed at a small sacrifice in quality.

When producing a color-quantized image, "-onepass -dither ordered" is fast but

much lower quality than the default behavior.  "-dither none" may give

acceptable results in two-pass mode, but is seldom tolerable in one-pass mode.

To avoid the Unisys LZW patent (now expired), djpeg produces uncompressed GIF

files.  These are larger than they should be, but are readable by standard GIF

decoders.

HINTS FOR BOTH PROGRAMS

If the memory needed by cjpeg or djpeg exceeds the limit specified by

-maxmemory, an error will occur.  You can leave out -progressive and -optimize

(for cjpeg) or specify -onepass (for djpeg) to reduce memory usage.

On machines that have "environment" variables, you can define the environment

variable JPEGMEM to set the default memory limit.  The value is specified as

described for the -maxmemory switch.  JPEGMEM overrides the default value

specified when the program was compiled, and itself is overridden by an

explicit -maxmemory switch.

JPEGTRAN

jpegtran performs various useful transformations of JPEG files.

It can translate the coded representation from one variant of JPEG to another,

for example from baseline JPEG to progressive JPEG or vice versa.  It can also

perform some rearrangements of the image data, for example turning an image

from landscape to portrait format by rotation.  For EXIF files and JPEG files

containing Exif data, you may prefer to use exiftran instead.

jpegtran works by rearranging the compressed data (DCT coefficients), without

ever fully decoding the image.  Therefore, its transformations are lossless:

there is no image degradation at all, which would not be true if you used

djpeg followed by cjpeg to accomplish the same conversion.  But by the same

token, jpegtran cannot perform lossy operations such as changing the image

quality.  However, while the image data is losslessly transformed, metadata

can be removed.  See the -copy option for specifics.

jpegtran uses a command line syntax similar to cjpeg or djpeg.

On Unix-like systems, you say:

        jpegtran [switches] [inputfile] >outputfile

On most non-Unix systems, you say:

        jpegtran [switches] inputfile outputfile

where both the input and output files are JPEG files.

To specify the coded JPEG representation used in the output file,

jpegtran accepts a subset of the switches recognized by cjpeg:

        -optimize       Perform optimization of entropy encoding parameters.

        -progressive    Create progressive JPEG file.

        -arithmetic     Use arithmetic coding.

        -restart N      Emit a JPEG restart marker every N MCU rows, or every

                        N MCU blocks if "B" is attached to the number.

        -scans file     Use the scan script given in the specified text file.

See the previous discussion of cjpeg for more details about these switches.

If you specify none of these switches, you get a plain baseline-JPEG output

file.  The quality setting and so forth are determined by the input file.

The image can be losslessly transformed by giving one of these switches:

        -flip horizontal        Mirror image horizontally (left-right).

        -flip vertical          Mirror image vertically (top-bottom).

        -rotate 90              Rotate image 90 degrees clockwise.

        -rotate 180             Rotate image 180 degrees.

        -rotate 270             Rotate image 270 degrees clockwise (or 90 ccw).

        -transpose              Transpose image (across UL-to-LR axis).

        -transverse             Transverse transpose (across UR-to-LL axis).

The transpose transformation has no restrictions regarding image dimensions.

The other transformations operate rather oddly if the image dimensions are not

a multiple of the iMCU size (usually 8 or 16 pixels), because they can only

transform complete blocks of DCT coefficient data in the desired way.

jpegtran's default behavior when transforming an odd-size image is designed

to preserve exact reversibility and mathematical consistency of the

transformation set.  As stated, transpose is able to flip the entire image

area.  Horizontal mirroring leaves any partial iMCU column at the right edge

untouched, but is able to flip all rows of the image.  Similarly, vertical

mirroring leaves any partial iMCU row at the bottom edge untouched, but is

able to flip all columns.  The other transforms can be built up as sequences

of transpose and flip operations; for consistency, their actions on edge

pixels are defined to be the same as the end result of the corresponding

transpose-and-flip sequence.

For practical use, you may prefer to discard any untransformable edge pixels

rather than having a strange-looking strip along the right and/or bottom edges

of a transformed image.  To do this, add the -trim switch:

        -trim           Drop non-transformable edge blocks.

Obviously, a transformation with -trim is not reversible, so strictly speaking

jpegtran with this switch is not lossless.  Also, the expected mathematical

equivalences between the transformations no longer hold.  For example,

"-rot 270 -trim" trims only the bottom edge, but "-rot 90 -trim" followed by

"-rot 180 -trim" trims both edges.

If you are only interested in perfect transformations, add the -perfect switch:

        -perfect        Fail with an error if the transformation is not

                        perfect.

For example, you may want to do

  jpegtran -rot 90 -perfect foo.jpg || djpeg foo.jpg | pnmflip -r90 | cjpeg

to do a perfect rotation, if available, or an approximated one if not.

This version of jpegtran also offers a lossless crop option, which discards

data outside of a given image region but losslessly preserves what is inside.

Like the rotate and flip transforms, lossless crop is restricted by the current

JPEG format; the upper left corner of the selected region must fall on an iMCU

boundary.  If it doesn't, then it is silently moved up and/or left to the

nearest iMCU boundary (the lower right corner is unchanged.)  Thus, the output

image covers at least the requested region, but it may cover more.  The

adjustment of the region dimensions may be optionally disabled by attaching an

'f' character ("force") to the width or height number.

The image can be losslessly cropped by giving the switch:

        -crop WxH+X+Y   Crop to a rectangular region of width W and height H,

                        starting at point X,Y.

Other not-strictly-lossless transformation switches are:

        -grayscale      Force grayscale output.

This option discards the chrominance channels if the input image is YCbCr

(ie, a standard color JPEG), resulting in a grayscale JPEG file.  The

luminance channel is preserved exactly, so this is a better method of reducing

to grayscale than decompression, conversion, and recompression.  This switch

is particularly handy for fixing a monochrome picture that was mistakenly

encoded as a color JPEG.  (In such a case, the space savings from getting rid

of the near-empty chroma channels won't be large; but the decoding time for

a grayscale JPEG is substantially less than that for a color JPEG.)

jpegtran also recognizes these switches that control what to do with "extra"

markers, such as comment blocks:

        -copy none      Copy no extra markers from source file.  This setting

                        suppresses all comments and other metadata in the

                        source file.

        -copy comments  Copy only comment markers.  This setting copies

                        comments from the source file but discards any other

                        metadata.

        -copy all       Copy all extra markers.  This setting preserves

                        miscellaneous markers found in the source file, such

                        as JFIF thumbnails, Exif data, and Photoshop settings.

                        In some files, these extra markers can be sizable.

                        Note that this option will copy thumbnails as-is;

                        they will not be transformed.

The default behavior is -copy comments.  (Note: in IJG releases v6 and v6a,

jpegtran always did the equivalent of -copy none.)

Additional switches recognized by jpegtran are:

        -outfile filename

        -maxmemory N

        -verbose

        -debug

These work the same as in cjpeg or djpeg.

THE COMMENT UTILITIES

The JPEG standard allows "comment" (COM) blocks to occur within a JPEG file.

Although the standard doesn't actually define what COM blocks are for, they

are widely used to hold user-supplied text strings.  This lets you add

annotations, titles, index terms, etc to your JPEG files, and later retrieve

them as text.  COM blocks do not interfere with the image stored in the JPEG

file.  The maximum size of a COM block is 64K, but you can have as many of

them as you like in one JPEG file.

We provide two utility programs to display COM block contents and add COM

blocks to a JPEG file.

rdjpgcom searches a JPEG file and prints the contents of any COM blocks on

standard output.  The command line syntax is

        rdjpgcom [-raw] [-verbose] [inputfilename]

The switch "-raw" (or just "-r") causes rdjpgcom to output non-printable

characters in JPEG comments.  These characters are normally escaped for

security reasons.

The switch "-verbose" (or just "-v") causes rdjpgcom to also display the JPEG

image dimensions.  If you omit the input file name from the command line,

the JPEG file is read from standard input.  (This may not work on some

operating systems, if binary data can't be read from stdin.)

wrjpgcom adds a COM block, containing text you provide, to a JPEG file.

Ordinarily, the COM block is added after any existing COM blocks, but you

can delete the old COM blocks if you wish.  wrjpgcom produces a new JPEG

file; it does not modify the input file.  DO NOT try to overwrite the input

file by directing wrjpgcom's output back into it; on most systems this will

just destroy your file.

The command line syntax for wrjpgcom is similar to cjpeg's.  On Unix-like

systems, it is

        wrjpgcom [switches] [inputfilename]

The output file is written to standard output.  The input file comes from

the named file, or from standard input if no input file is named.

On most non-Unix systems, the syntax is

        wrjpgcom [switches] inputfilename outputfilename

where both input and output file names must be given explicitly.

wrjpgcom understands three switches:

        -replace                 Delete any existing COM blocks from the file.

        -comment "Comment text"  Supply new COM text on command line.

        -cfile name              Read text for new COM block from named file.

(Switch names can be abbreviated.)  If you have only one line of comment text

to add, you can provide it on the command line with -comment.  The comment

text must be surrounded with quotes so that it is treated as a single

argument.  Longer comments can be read from a text file.

If you give neither -comment nor -cfile, then wrjpgcom will read the comment

text from standard input.  (In this case an input image file name MUST be

supplied, so that the source JPEG file comes from somewhere else.)  You can

enter multiple lines, up to 64KB worth.  Type an end-of-file indicator

(usually control-D or control-Z) to terminate the comment text entry.

wrjpgcom will not add a COM block if the provided comment string is empty.

Therefore -replace -comment "" can be used to delete all COM blocks from a

file.

These utility programs do not depend on the IJG JPEG library.  In

particular, the source code for rdjpgcom is intended as an illustration of

the minimum amount of code required to parse a JPEG file header correctly.