displaying images stored as a path in mysql

Anon

Someone please help me. I've been struggling with this for days.

I've stored images (.jpg) as a name in a database. (Not as a BLOB but
rather as part of a path to a directory on my disk). I want to now
retrieve
them. All I'm getting is a broken image or I'll get binary garbage on the
browser. I have no clue how to solve this problem.
Please go easy on me I'm a newbie to php4.

Here is the script I've written to "try" to display the image:

<HEAD>
<TITLE>Show Image</TITLE></HEAD>
<BODY>

<?php
if($submit){

$path = "/home/janine/scanned";
require('sig.inc');
$link =mysql_connect($host,$user,$password);
if(!mysql_select_db($db))
    print "Couldn't open $db: ".mysql_error();
$query = "SELECT picture FROM Image WHERE
    '$picture' = picture";
$result=mysql_query($query,$link);
$data = mysql_result($result,0,"picture");
print $data;
//Header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
//readfile("$path/$data");
print "<Img Src=\"$path/$data\">";
Mysql_Close($link);  //Close the thread

}
?>

<FORM ENCTYPE="multipart/form-data" METHOD="POST"
ACTION="<?php echo $PHP_SELF?>">
Image to get:
<input type="text" name="picture" size="25">

<input type="submit" name="submit" value="Get it!">
</FORM>

</BODY>

If you notice I've commented out the Header() line because I get a warning
if it's there:

Warning: Cannot add header information - headers already sent by (output started at /home/janine/quad/web/show_data.php:5) in /home/janine/quad/web/show_data.php on line 20

And I've been going back and forth between the <IMG SRC>
tag and the readfile() function. If I use the readfile function I get
binary garbage. If I use the <IMG SRC> tag I get a broken image. I think
the problem has something to do with the header() function. But I don't
know where to put it?

Please please help....I'm very frustrated.

Thanks in advance

--
Janine Roe

mjroe@bellatlantic.net

Anon

The header must be sent before any other output is sent to the client.

Can you browse to the images via the web? If you can, then all you really should need is a properly formatted img tag.

Is the link to an html page or just a straight link right to the jpg as in: http://www.somesite.com/image.jpg?

If it's straight to a jpg, you need to send a header but as I say, the header must be sent before anything else.
matt.

Anon

I agree with Matt. You might need two separate scripts to get the functionality you want, but you need to get some thing straight first:

1) ... my page, etc... should be step #1.

Get everything situated the way you wanted, including your image tag with the 'broken picture' worry about the broken picture on the next step.

2) if you can figure out a way to type "http://www.mysite.com/whatever/evenmore/picture1.jpg"
and get a picture, then your task is simple to complete:
put an <img src="$what_you_typed"> tag where you want your picture to appear, and you're in business.

Otherwise.... it means that you've stored your scanned images outside of the "Document Root" The document root is simply "only the files that i want other people on the internet to be able to see".

If anybody could see any file that you have on your system, that would be really bad, so you have to explicitly let people see files by putting them in the document root.

If you don't want to put them in the document root, then you can "fool" the webserver into letting people see them by making a separate script, call it "view_picture.php", and make view_picture.php perform the Header(), Readfile() comamnds, and nothing else.

Any time you let people view files outside of the document root, you NEEED to really be careful about security, otherwise somebody might be able to say "view_picture.php?file=/home/janine/email.txt" instead of "file=/home/janine/scanned/picture.jpg"

Hopefully this will get you started...

--Robert

Anon

Did you ever get this situation resolved? I am getting the exact same header error, but have had no luck in trying to get the header to the db first. Any thoughts?

Thanks,

Jeff

Anon

Hi Jeff,

I was able to resolve the problem. If you note from my code I had the path to any images outside the document root. Once I put the images inside the public_html directory and made sure the permissions were correct (chmod a+r in linux) in the directory tree, I was able to display the image to the screen.

I also learned that any header() function used must preceed any html tags. I've since moved all html tags to display to the browser close within the block of code to display to the browser.

I hope that helps.

Janine