Encoding bug with an image and file_get_contents in PHP - php

Question

I use this code to retrieve and display an image:
header("Content-type: image/png");
echo file_get_contents(site_domain().image_asset_module_url("header.png",$this->name));
on my local WAMP it works, but on the remote server file_get_contents returns a wrong-encoded string:
Local:
‰PNG IHDR^jRÀ2¡ pHYsÒÝ~üÿÿIDATxÚ콘Uõµþ¿`ŠŠÔéÃÕ¨¹&&ù'77¹i¦˜è‰=V:RlH‡™aAlH™B¯Jbh...
Remote:
�PNG IHDR^jR�2� pHYs��~���IDATx����U����`������ը�&&�'77�i��草=V:Rl...
If I use utf8_encode I get:
PNG IHDR^jRÀ2¡ pHYsÒÝ~üÿÿIDATxÚì½Uõµþ¿`ÔéÃÕ¨¹&&ù'77¹i¦è=V:RlHaAlHB¯Jbh...
So I always get a break picture on my remote Server - why and what is the solution?

Answer 1

The data is always the same. file_get_contents does not alter data in any way. You're also not dealing with text in some encoding, but with binary data. Any sort of text-encoding or conversion thereof does not apply here.
Your first sample is the binary image data as interpreted as Latin-1 encoded text.
Your second sample is the same binary data as interpreted as UTF-8 encoded text.
I.e., the data is fine, the interpretation is wrong. The interpretation should be set by the Content-Type header, perhaps this is not being set correctly on the remote server. For this problem, inspect the raw HTTP response headers and see How to fix "Headers already sent" error in PHP.

Answer 2

I would have rather used
<?php
$file = 'http://url/to_image.png';
$data = file_get_contents($file);
header('Content-type: image/png');
echo $data;
Or Can you try this
$remoteImage = "http://www.example.com/gifs/logo.gif";
$imginfo = getimagesize($remoteImage);
header("Content-type: $imginfo['mime']");
readfile($remoteImage);