binary file(pdf) from database on web page using PHP - php

Question

I have uploaded a pdf file (varbinary(MAX)) in MSSQL running on my desktop via VS2010 (Ref) with just the UPDATE statement in the Ref.
The table has additional data associated with the pdf, like name, description, date.
Table in database:
Name | Description | Date | File |
DataSheet | Milling M/C | 2004-01-01 | <Binary data> |
Is it possible to display the table content in a web page as
Name | Description | Date | File |`
DataSheet | Milling M/C | 2004-01-01 | (link to the pdf) |
or
Name | Description | Date | File |
DataSheet | Milling M/C | 2004-01-01 | (an icon of pdf) |
using PHP so that user can click the link/file to view it. There will be lot of rows, I just gave 1 row for example.
Please let me know if I am not clear, thanks in advance.
PS: I did create some images but was not able to post them, sorry about the format
What I have done so far
I am using 'Connect without a DSN (using a connection string)' from here
$conn = new COM ("ADODB.Connection") or die("Cannot start ADO");
$connStr = "PROVIDER=SQLOLEDB;SERVER=".$myServer.";UID=".$myUser.";PWD=".$myPass.";DATABASE=".$myDB;
$conn->open($connStr);
$query = "select * from Table";
$rs = $conn->execute($query);
$num_columns = $rs->Fields->Count();
for ($i=0; $i < $num_columns; $i++) {
$fld[$i] = $rs->Fields($i);
}
while (!$rs->EOF)
{
for ($i=0; $i < $num_columns; $i++) {
echo $fld[$i]->value;
}
$rs->MoveNext();
}
The result I am getting is garbage for binary data.
DataSheet | Milling M/C | 2004-01-01 | some_garbage |

Answer 1

Yes it is possible. Create a link to a separate page that accepts a record is in the query string. For instance, you can link to ViewFile.php?recordid=123.
Then, in ViewFile.php, you can get the binary data, output some headers, and output the binary (I think even echo would suffice for that).
The headers should contain at least a Content-Type header, telling the browser that the binary data is to be interpreted as application/pdf data. If it is not a pdf, you should specify appropriate headers. Lists of valid Content-Types can be found all over the internet.
You can specify a filename too. But the important thing is that you can determine what kind of data it is. If you don't know whether it is an icon or a pdf, you cannot tell the browser either. The browser will need to know (by reading the content-type header) how the data should be interpreted. It cannot guess it, even when the url would have a .pdf extension.