PNG encoder and decoder in C and C++, without dependencies

Home page: http://lodev.org/lodepng/

Detailed documentation is included in a large comment in the second half of the header file lodepng.h.

Source code examples using LodePNG can be found in the examples directory.

An FAQ can be found on http://lodev.org/lodepng/

Only two files are needed to encode and decode PNGs:

• lodepng.cpp (or renamed to lodepng.c)
• lodepng.h

All other files are just source code examples, tests, misc utilities, etc..., which are normally not needed in projects using this.

You can include the files directly in your project's source tree and its makefile, IDE project file, or other build system. No library is necessary.

In addition to C++, LodePNG also supports ANSI C (C89), with all the same functionality: C++ only adds extra convenience API.

For C, rename lodepng.cpp to lodepng.c.

Consider using git submodules to include LodePNG in your project.

If you have a hypothetical your_program.cpp that #includes and uses lodepng.h, you can build as follows:

g++ your_program.cpp lodepng.cpp -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -ansi -O3

or:

clang++ your_program.cpp lodepng.cpp -Wall -Wextra -pedantic -ansi -O3

This shows compiler flags it was designed for, but normally one would use the compiler or build system of their project instead of those commands, and other C++ compilers are supported.

Rename lodepng.cpp to lodepng.c for this.

If you have a hypothetical your_program.c that #includes and uses lodepng.h, you can build as follows:

gcc your_program.c lodepng.c -ansi -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -O3

or

clang your_program.c lodepng.c -ansi -pedantic -Wall -Wextra -O3

This shows compiler flags it was designed for, but normally one would use the compiler or build system of their project instead of those commands, and other C compilers are supported.

There is a Makefile, but this is not intended for using LodePNG itself since the way to use that one is to include its source files in your program. The Makefile only builds development and testing utilities. It can be used as follows:

make -j