# pict-rs 0.5.7

## Overview

pict-rs 0.5.7 adds support for generating blurhashes from images and includes a couple unrelated
fixes and tweaks. 

### Features

- [Blurhash Endpoint](#blurhash-endpoint)


### Changes

- [File Path Changes](#file-path-changes)
- [Performance Improvements](#performance-improvements)


### Fixes

- [More Consistent Errors](#more-consistent-errors)
- [APNG Detection](#apng-detection)


## Upgrade Notes

There is a small repo format migration between 0.5.6 and 0.5.7. For sled it's simply opening a new
tree, for postgres it involves adding a new column to the hashes table. These changes will
automatically apply when launching pict-rs 0.5.7. Upgrading should be as simple as pulling a new
version of pict-rs.


## Descriptions

### Blurhash Endpoint

A new endpoint at `/image/blurhash` has been added for generating blurhashes from uploaded media. A
blurhash is a short string that encodes a few notable color values from an image that can be
reconstructed into a blurred approximation of the original image. Notably, blurhashes are used by
Mastodon to act as placeholders for sensitive media. For more information about blurhashes, see
[blurha.sh](https://blurha.sh).

This endpoint is powered by my new blurhash encoding library,
[blurhash-update](https://crates.io/crates/blurhash-update).

On success, the blurhash endpoint returns the following JSON.

```json
{
    "msg": "ok",
    "blurhash": "LGF5]+Yk^6#M@-5c,1J5@[or[Q6."
}
```

pict-rs does not provide a blurhash decoding mechanism (it would defeat the purpose of blurhashes to
do so).


### File Path Changes

pict-rs has dropped its dependency on my `storage-path-generator` library in favor of using UUIDs to
create unique file paths for uploaded media. This means that newly uploaded media will be stored in
a different directory structure, and with different filenames. The purpose of this is to reduce
database use by removing the need to synchronize the current path state.

pict-rs 0.5.7 also adds file extensions back to file paths, since they are now somewhat-publicly
visible (when using the public_endpoint configuration with object storage).

Neither of these changes affect previously uploaded media.


### Performance Improvements

pict-rs 0.5.7 now buffers media in memory less frequently, opting to stream bytes directly from
sources to sinks. This should improve general memory use, as well as decrease time pict-rs would
spend waiting to aggregate bytes.

pict-rs also no longer requires bytes be present in contiguous buffers, avoiding large allocations
and reducing memcpys.


### More Consistent Errors

pict-rs 0.5 introduced machine-readable error codes that returned alongside error messages, but
there were a couple locations in pict-rs that failed to include them. pict-rs 0.5.7 resolves this,
ensuring all error paths properly return codes.


### APNG Detection

pict-rs 0.5.7 fixes the imagemagick delegate policy for ffmpeg, which allows for properly detecting
certain media, notably APNG files. pict-rs should once again be able to properly handle uploaded
APNGs.