moving away from using BLOB to using referencing path - php

Question

Instead of storing images using BLOB in mySQL, I have decided to attempt to use a referencing path instead. So I stored images into my "localhost" folder:
localhost/dvd_artwork/image.jpg
Therefore in my database, under column "dvdimage_path" I have TEXT "dvd_artwork/image.jpg" where my id = 1
However, I can't seem to get this to work at the moment
my catalog.php:
<img src="getImage.php?id=1" alt="" width="175" height="200" />
my getimage.php:
<?php
$id = $_GET['id'];
// do some validation here to ensure id is safe
$link = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "");
mysql_select_db("dvddb");
$sql = "SELECT dvdimage_path FROM dvd WHERE id=$id";
$result = mysql_query("$sql");
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
mysql_close($link);
echo $row['dvdimage_path'];
?>
is there anything wrong?

Answer 1

remove quotes from mysql_query
// Change that
$result = mysql_query("$sql");
// To that
$result = mysql_query($sql);

Answer 2

This doesn't make any sense – getImage returns a string, not an image...
You probably want to replace the getImage href, and just generate the page like this:
<?php
$id = $_GET['id'];
// do some validation here to ensure id is safe
$link = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "");
mysql_select_db("dvddb");
$sql = "SELECT dvdimage_path FROM dvd WHERE id=$id";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
mysql_close($link);
?>
<img src="<?= $row['dvdimage_path'] ?>" alt="" width="175" height="200" />
...or you want to use file_get_contents on the path, then echo that out with the appropriate headers:
<?php
$id = $_GET['id'];
// do some validation here to ensure id is safe
$link = mysql_connect("localhost", "root", "");
mysql_select_db("dvddb");
$sql = "SELECT dvdimage_path FROM dvd WHERE id=$id";
$result = mysql_query($sql);
$row = mysql_fetch_assoc($result);
mysql_close($link);
header('Content-Type: image/jpeg'); // Or png, or whatever...
echo file_get_contents($_SERVER['DOCUMENT_ROOT'].$row['dvdimage_path']); // might need a slash between the two variables here...
?>
I'd recommend the first way if possible, as it then has the benefits of allowing normal header usage via your server config.