retrieving text and graphics stored in a database

Anon

I am currently retrieving binary data (small gifs) stored in a MySQL database, but when I do I am unable to put any text on the same page. I assume this is because of the Header("content-type:image/gif") tag.

How do I create a second connection to the web server within this same page to also display simple HTML ? Or where in this code can i put HTML to get to display?

Thanks for any help.

My code is:

<?php

@MYSQL_CONNECT ('localhost", "root", "root");

@mysql_select_Db("test");

$query = "SELECT gif,filetype FROM bin_data WHERE id=$id";
$result = MYSQL_QUERY($query);

$data = @MYSQL_RESULT($result,0,"gif");
$type= @MYSQL_RESULT($result,0,"filetype");

Header("content-type: $type")
echo $data;
?>

Anon

You will have to write a standalone script - my experience is mostly in Perl (sorry!), so lets call this script image.pl, and lets say that the full path to this script is:

http://www.foobar.com/cgi-bin/image.pl

Lets assume that you have a table images, which has a field called 'ID', and one with the path to the image, lets call it 'image_path'.

from your page my_page.php, generate all the HTML as usual, except for the image, the link for which should read:

where image_id is replaced by the id for the image you want to retrieve.

The script image.pl (I'm sure it could be image.php, but I don't use PHP for CGI) will:

look up the field 'image_path' for the id that is equal to 'image_id'
Open the image file (or die!).
print "Content-type: image/gif\n\n"
send the contents of the file
close the file and terminate.

I'm sure you can do this in PHP, but I haven't got around to it. I hope this gives you a lead.