exif_imagetype

(PHP 4 >= 4.3.0, PHP 5, PHP 7, PHP 8)

exif_imagetypeDetermine the type of an image

Description

exif_imagetype(string $filename): int|false

exif_imagetype() reads the first bytes of an image and checks its signature.

exif_imagetype() can be used to avoid calls to other exif functions with unsupported file types or in conjunction with $_SERVER['HTTP_ACCEPT'] to check whether or not the viewer is able to see a specific image in the browser.

Parameters

filename
The image being checked.

Return Values

When a correct signature is found, the appropriate constant value will be returned otherwise the return value is false. The return value is the same value that getimagesize() returns in index 2 but exif_imagetype() is much faster.

The following constants are defined, and represent possible exif_imagetype() return values:

Imagetype Constants
Value Constant
1 IMAGETYPE_GIF
2 IMAGETYPE_JPEG
3 IMAGETYPE_PNG
4 IMAGETYPE_SWF
5 IMAGETYPE_PSD
6 IMAGETYPE_BMP
7 IMAGETYPE_TIFF_II (intel byte order)
8 IMAGETYPE_TIFF_MM (motorola byte order)
9 IMAGETYPE_JPC
10 IMAGETYPE_JP2
11 IMAGETYPE_JPX
12 IMAGETYPE_JB2
13 IMAGETYPE_SWC
14 IMAGETYPE_IFF
15 IMAGETYPE_WBMP
16 IMAGETYPE_XBM
17 IMAGETYPE_ICO
18 IMAGETYPE_WEBP

Note:

exif_imagetype() will emit an E_NOTICE and return false if it is unable to read enough bytes from the file to determine the image type.

Changelog

Version Description
7.1.0 Added WebP support.

Examples

Example #1 exif_imagetype() example

<?php
if (exif_imagetype('image.gif') != IMAGETYPE_GIF) {
    echo 
'The picture is not a gif';
}
?>

See Also

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User Contributed Notes 7 notes

up
23
christophe dot tournayre at univ*bpclermont dot Fr
10 years ago
Because I only want to check for jpeg or png from a memory string, this is my 2 functions that are quick and don't have any dependencies :

<?php
 
function is_jpeg(&$pict)
  {
    return (
bin2hex($pict[0]) == 'ff' && bin2hex($pict[1]) == 'd8');
  }

  function
is_png(&$pict)
  {
    return (
bin2hex($pict[0]) == '89' && $pict[1] == 'P' && $pict[2] == 'N' && $pict[3] == 'G');
  }
?>
up
17
Tim
16 years ago
By trial and error, it seems that a file has to be 12 bytes or larger in order to avoid a "Read error!".  Here's a work-around to avoid an error being thrown:

// exif_imagetype throws "Read error!" if file is too small
if (filesize($uploadfile) > 11)
    $mimetype = exif_imagetype($uploadfile);
else
    $mimetype = false;
up
19
admin at leonard !spam challis dot com
13 years ago
Windows users: If you get the fatal error "Fatal error:  Call to undefined function exif_imagetype()", and you have enabled php_exif.dll, make sure you enable php_mbstring.dll. You must put mbstring before exif in the php.ini, i.e.:

extension=php_mbstring.dll
extension=php_exif.dll

You can check whether this has worked by calling phpinfo() and searching for exif.
up
8
tom dot ghyselinck at telenet dot be
16 years ago
If the function exif_imagetype() is not available,
you can try the following workaround:

if ( ! function_exists( 'exif_imagetype' ) ) {
    function exif_imagetype ( $filename ) {
        if ( ( list($width, $height, $type, $attr) = getimagesize( $filename ) ) !== false ) {
            return $type;
        }
    return false;
    }
}
up
-10
vuatintac at yahoo dot com
9 years ago
to checking file is image, I used this:

function is_image($path)
{
    $a = getimagesize($path);
    $image_type = $a[2];

    if(in_array($image_type , array(IMAGETYPE_GIF , IMAGETYPE_JPEG ,IMAGETYPE_PNG , IMAGETYPE_BMP)))
    {
        return true;
    }
    return false;
}
up
-12
Anonymous
17 years ago
Seems to give a 'Read error' warning if the size of the file is very small (2 bytes). I think this is because it needs a min 3 bytes to determine the file type
up
-15
tom at tomvergote dot be
20 years ago
libexif can also be used to parse image info out of id3 tags:

exif_read_data("mp3_with_2.4ID3TAGS, '', true, false);
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