Trying to display an echoed image from a PHP script in and `<img src=“…”` tag

Question

The objective:

1) I have a images folder outside web root where all images from the web app are placed (each image path is saved in a DB table);

2) I want to get that image upon a request from the user.

Simple, right?

I did:

a) Create a class to reads the image (with all security features and safeguards that I can remember). It returns (successfully) the image encoded (base64) with the respective mime type.

b) I've created, for demonstration purposes, a index.php, which has:

<img src="agivenscript.php?img=name.jpeg">

My only objective here is to call from any other place in my web app a script that outputs the base64 encoded image with the respective mime type.

c) Created a script "agivenscript.php" that receives the image name by GET, instantiates my class and gets, when all goes right, the base64 encoded image. It then echoes the image.

What happens:

• When I do the output - using echo '<img src="'. $output64encodedwithmimetype. '">'; - in agivenscript.php it works like a charm;
• Moreover, if I take the $output64encodedwithmimetype contents and place the string directly in the src tag of index.php, it also works.
• However, it does not work when I try <img src="agivenscript.php?img=name.jpeg"> .

As the base64 encoded image is obviously fine (and has the mime type), what am I missing? Any idea?

Thank in advance.

Answer 1

data: scheme URLs can be Base64 encoded.

HTTP responses of the image/jpeg (or png or whatever) can't . You need to serve up the actual image data without encoding it as text.

readfile is probably all you need.