How to check if an image has transparency using GD?

Question

How do I check if an image has transparent pixels with php\'s GD library?

Answer 1

I know this is an old thread, but in my opinion it needs improvement since walking through a huge png by checking all pixels only to find out it is not transparent is a waste of time. So after some googleing I found Jon Fox's Blog and I improved his code with the help of the W3C PNG Specification further to be reliable, fast and have a minimum on memory imprint:

function IsTransparentPng($File){
    //32-bit pngs
    //4 checks for greyscale + alpha and RGB + alpha
    if ((ord(file_get_contents($File, false, null, 25, 1)) & 4)>0){
        return true;
    }
    //8 bit pngs
    $fd=fopen($File, 'r');
    $continue=true;
    $plte=false;
    $trns=false;
    $idat=false;
    while($continue===true){
        $continue=false;
        $line=fread($fd, 1024);
        if ($plte===false){
            $plte=(stripos($line, 'PLTE')!==false);
        }
        if ($trns===false){
            $trns=(stripos($line, 'tRNS')!==false);
        }
        if ($idat===false){
            $idat=(stripos($line, 'IDAT')!==false);
        }
        if ($idat===false and !($plte===true and $trns===true)){
            $continue=true;
        }
    }
    fclose($fd);
    return ($plte===true and $trns===true);
}