Displaying an Image Stored in a MySQL BLOB

When attempting to display an image stored as a BLOB in a MySQL database using the provided PHP code, users have encountered an issue where outputting any text or content before or after the image results in display errors. This article addresses this problem and presents a solution to display additional elements alongside the image.

The original code:

include("inc/library.php");

connectToDatabase();

$sql = "SELECT * FROM theBlogs WHERE ID = 1;";

$result = mysql_query($sql) or die(mysql_error());  
$row = mysql_fetch_array($result);

header("Content-type: image/jpeg");
echo $row['imageContent'];
$db->close();

Attempts to echo out the image content directly in the page, but encounters problems if any other content is output before or after it.

Solution

The issue arises because browsers consider any text or content outside of the image data to be part of the image. To resolve this, the image data can be converted to Base64 and embedded within an tag.

echo '';
echo 'Hello world.';

This solution converts the image data to Base64 and places it in an tag, allowing the image to be displayed correctly while also permitting the output of additional content on the page.

Note: While this approach works, it is not optimal for performance and caching. It is recommended to explore alternative solutions for displaying images stored as BLOBs in MySQL databases, such as using caching mechanisms or external image servers.