[wxperl-users] Creating a BMP from scalar...

[Bradley K. E. <bk...@bk...>]

Hello All,

I have a scalar containing a bmp (generated by ChartDirector 
(http://www.advsofteng.com/cdperl.html)) that I would like to create a 
Wx::Bitmap from, which I will then draw on a panel.

Wx::Bitmap does not seem to be able to do this directly, but I thought I 
could create a Wx::Bitmap from a Wx::Image.

So code looks like:

# create a scalar containing the bmp data
my $chart_bmp = $chart_object->makeChart2($perlchartdir::BMP);

my $bmp = Wx::Bitmap->new(
	Wx::Image->new( ... )
);

The ... is where I am having problems. I've tried the following forms of 
the Wx::Image constructor:

Wx::Image->new( width, height, data ):

my $bmp = Wx::Bitmap->new(
	Wx::Image->new( 200, 200, $chart_bmp )
);

Gives me an error message of 'not enough data in image constructor at ...'.

Wx::Image->new( stream, type, index ):

First naive attempt:
$bmp = Wx::Bitmap->new(
	Wx::Image->new( $chart_bmp, wxBITMAP_TYPE_BMP, -1 )
);

Gives me an error message  indicating the file does not exist so I 
assume the constructor thinks that $chart_bmp is a file name.

Next attempt:
$bmp = Wx::Bitmap->new(
	Wx::Image->new( \$chart_bmp, wxBITMAP_TYPE_BMP, -1 )
);

Which gives an error message that it is not a GLOB reference.

So stream == filehandle. But the point of this is that I don't want to 
write $chart_bmp to a file, so I tried opening $chart_bmp as an "in 
memory" file:

open my $fh, '<', \$chart_bmp or die "cannot open: $!";
$bmp = Wx::Bitmap->new(
	Wx::Image->new( $fh, wxBITMAP_TYPE_BMP, -1 )
);

Which gives me an error of 'DIB Header: Image width > 32767 pixels for 
file.'.

I've tested the contents of $chart_bmp by opening a filehandle and 
printing the contents to the file and it is a valid bitmap. So I am a 
bit lost as far as where to go next.

Is it possible to create a stream from a scalar? I've looked at 
wxInputStream but the docs indicate that it is not implemented in wxPerl.

Am I am being a complete moron and missing something obvious here?

Any help/pointers would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks,

Brad