Native integration

Native integration

The portable core lives in src/v2_core.hpp and src/v2_core.cpp. It uses C++17, memory buffers, structured status results, and pinned Zstandard. It does not depend on Python, NumPy, Pillow, pybind11, filesystem APIs, or global mutable state.

The core exposes complete-image encode/decode, ROI reconstruction, comparison, metadata rewriting, progress/cancellation hooks, and runtime information.

The experimental src/wimf_c.h bridge exposes ABI version 1 using plain C structures, initialized option records, structured status codes, and explicit output-buffer release functions. Third-party applications should target this boundary once it is marked stable rather than binding directly to C++ standard-library types.

The root CMake project builds static or shared libraries, installs wimf_c.h, and exports WIMF::wimf for find_package(WIMF CONFIG REQUIRED). The shared library uses ABI major version 1; this is independent of the WIM2 container version and the canonical .wimf filename extension.

ABI v1 freezes symbol meanings, record fields, enum values, ownership, cleanup, threading, and error behavior. Inputs are borrowed during calls; successful outputs are owned by WIMF and must be released by the same loaded library. No C++ exception may cross the C boundary, and independent calls may run concurrently.

Planned consumers are Pillow, ImageMagick/GraphicsMagick, FFmpeg, desktop thumbnail providers, WebAssembly, and Rust.

For integrations that cannot link a library yet, CMake also builds the small wimf-native process bridge. It converts 8-bit binary PGM/PPM images to and from .wimf using only the public C ABI. This keeps the bridge portable and gives other languages an immediate integration path without making filesystem or image-format dependencies part of the codec core.