Send image from client to database using sql - php

Question

I'm trying to display an image that is stored in my database. I know it is not best practice to store an image in the database, but just for this purpose its what I need. My problem is when I go to display the image, all I get is a load of scrambled code, which I guess is the image in code but not visually what I want. When I use the header tag to identify the image all I get is a thumbnail to mean it isn't reading it in right. Any help would be great.
Below is code I'm using. I've tried it in both ways using it to display in either the php or in html but can't display the image:
while($row = mysql_fetch_array($result))
{
$Long = $row['Long'];
$Lat = $row['Lat'];
$img = $row['file'];
echo "<b><center>Database Output</b><br><br>";
echo "<td>" .$row['file']."</td>";
echo "----";
echo "<td>" .$row['Lat']."</td></center>";
//echo "<td>" .$row['file']."</td>";
}
?>
<div id="map">
<img src="<? $img?>" alt="">
Thanks for any input

Answer 1

Either you embed the image into your html page as a data URI
<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,<?php echo base64_encode($img) ?>" />
which is hideously NASTILY horrible for 'large' files - you make it impossible for the browser to cache the image, forcing the user download the base64-encoded data EVERY time they load the page.
or you have a sub-script to serve up the actual image, and have something more like:
<img src="getimage.jpg?id=XXX">
and
<?php
$data = get_image_from_db($_GET['id']);
header('Content-type: image/jpeg');
echo $data;