need help- file from database are downloaded as HTML doc, not as an jpeg or gif

earlparkerii

I'm trying to develop a script to download an jpeg or gif file from a MySQL database to use in an online catalog page. The script seems to work OK but the problem is that the file is downloaded as an HTML Document instead of a JPEG or GIF type. My uneducated guess is that some header info is needed to correct this but I really don't know. For reference, the simplified code is below. Any help would be greatly appreciated.

$query = "SELECT image_data FROM table";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$row = stripslashes(mysql_fetch_array($result));
$image = $row[0];
echo $image;

bastien

are you storing the image in the db or the path/image name as text in the db?

the second method is preferred and then what i do is simple


while ($rows=mysql_fetch_array($result)){

 $img=$rows['image_path'];

echo "<img src=$img height=100 width=100>";

way simpler and its how dbs handle images and blobs anyway...by storing a pointer and holding the file outside the db...

hth

earlparkerii

The images are very small files (<20kb) so I was storing them in the database. BTW, the following code at least returns the correct file type, though the basic problem remains:

$query = "SELECT image_data,image_name,image_type,image_size FROM table";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$image_data = stripslashes($row[0]);
$image_name = $row[1];
$image_type = $row[2];
$image_size = $row[3];
$part_no = $row[4];
header("Content-Disposition: inline; filename=$image_name");
header("Content-type: $image_type");
header("Content-length: $image_size");
echo $image_data;

I've thought about handling it the way you suggested but ran into a problem (I'm sure this is an excessively stupid question but here goes)- how do I arrive at the correct path name? I'm using SQLyog to insert the image files and other pertinent info in the table. Is the path name something like /server name/database/table?

Thanks for replying- any more pearls of wisdom you might have are most welcome. If I can solve this issue I can develop a truly dynamic online catalog.

bastien

well the path is usually fixed and i tend to use the virtual path any way...

so i could write

echo "<img src=\"/foldername/$img\">

where image is something like "product1.jpg" or "product2.gif"

earlparkerii

Success!! The following code does the trick:

$query = "SELECT image_name,image_height,image_width FROM table";
$result = mysql_query($query);
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);
$image_name = $row[0];
$image_height = $row[1];
$image_width = $row[2];
echo "<img src=\"/path/to/$image_name\" height=$image_height width=$image_width>";

Thank you very much for your time and expertise- you have no idea how much you've helped.