Problem displaying images from blob fields in MySQL

catalinus

I have a form regarding posting information about shops. One of the fields uploads an image to the MySQL database. This form works ok.
On the other hand, i have another form that displays the data about shops. It retrieves all the information, but at the image field, it displays it as scrambled text (something like ÿØÿàJFIF``ÿÛC )
The code to display that field looks something like this:

<?php
echo $picture;
?>

If i change it to

<?php
Header( "Content-type: image/pjpeg");
echo $picture;
?>

, I receive the "headers already send ..." warning.

Basically this the code from
http://www.phpbuilder.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=10216875

If i add the Header( "Content-type: image/pjpeg"); code in a separate php tag, before the <html> section, i receive no warning, but the image is again displayed as scrambled text.

I believe the problem is that line. In the article at the address i mentioned, the script works only for pages displaying homogenous content, aka images. But for pages that contains both images and text, there are problems.

I have searched through help files and references, but i did not come to any conclusion. Could you help me? Thanks.

barand

The usual advice given in these forums is to store a reference to the location of an an image in the database rather than the image itself.

Bunkermaster

try to check for empty new lines outside the <?php?> blocks. a blank line is sending \n to the browser hence the headers already sent issue.

Weedpacket

...What <html> section?

Image files and HTML files are two different things; if you're sending an image you set the header() as you're doing, and then send the image data. There is no "<html> section".

If you're sending an HTML page, the headers don't need to be changed, but you don't send any image data - instead you send <img> tags with src attributes.

An HTML page that displays an image needs to make two requests to the server and get back two separate responses - one for the HTML page itself and one for the image specified in the <img> tag. Are you trying to send both together?

Bunkermaster

hehe good question weed 🙂

catalinus

Originally posted by Weedpacket
...What <html> section?

Image files and HTML files are two different things; if you're sending an image you set the header() as you're doing, and then send the image data. There is no "<html> section".

If you're sending an HTML page, the headers don't need to be changed, but you don't send any image data - instead you send <img> tags with src attributes.

An HTML page that displays an image needs to make two requests to the server and get back two separate responses - one for the HTML page itself and one for the image specified in the <img> tag. Are you trying to send both together?

Yes. I am trying to display both the image from the blob field and the records in the other fields (such as name, description etc). And here is the trouble, as i receive the records (name, description etc) normally, and the image i received as the scrambled text.

This is a topic i havent seen been discussed on this forum either other forums. When it comes about image management with php and mysql, people says its better to store in the database only the path and the name of the image file, for database optimisation and performance issues. Well, my database wont store lots of images, so i want to take into consideration the other option: storing it in a blob field. I have done the upload operation, but the problem is displaying the data, more specifically, to display the blob field image along with the data in other fields (the display of the blob field image alone worked).

The reason i posted this topic is to save me some time (i have done the image management operation by storing only the path&name of the image), but also for my curiosity, as i did not see a similar article on the web.

So, "can this be done in php?" 🙂

Cheers,
Catalin

Weedpacket

Certainly it can be done; I've already pointed out the cause for your problem and what to do about it. Don't put the raw image data in your HTML page - put an <img> tag instead, and have its src= attribute point to another PHP script that will output the raw image data (and, except for the header, nothing else).

catalinus

Really SMART solution ! 🙂 Thanks a lot, Weed !