displaying blob images - symfony - php

Question

I have blob data in my database and they are images that I want to display as a basic gallery.
I have a method that I have written to display the images, but I'm getting an error, saying that it is a string, rather than blob data being returned:
public function getFilenamePath()
{
$file_src = false;
if (null !== $fp = $this->getFilename())
{
$file = stream_get_contents($fp);
$file_src = '/uploads/gallery/'.$this->getId().'.jpg';
}
return $file_src;
}
where getFilename() is my blob column.
action:
public function executeSingle(sfWebRequest $request)
{
$application_id = $this->getRequestParameter('id');
$c = new Criteria();
$c->addJoin(GalleryPeer::APPLICATION_ID, ApplicationPeer::ID);
$c->addJoin(GalleryImagePeer::GALLERY_ID, GalleryPeer::ID);
$c->add(GalleryPeer::APPLICATION_ID, $application_id);
$this->galleries = GalleryImagePeer::doSelect ( $c );
}
template:
foreach($galleries as $gallery)
{
$path = $gallery->getFilenamePath();
if($path)
{
echo '<img src="'.$path.'" />';
}
}
The error I get is that stream_get_contents seems to be returning a string.
Is there anyway, I can get the blob data, or rather than use a model method, use an action to return all the images attached to the application?
Thanks

Answer 1

If you store images in the database, you have (basically) two options to show them on the client:
First solution: Get file content and encode it with base64 encoding. You can find a working example here:
http://www.php.net/manual/en/function.base64-encode.php#99842
This method is not the best as if you do it like that, the client won't be able to cache these images, that means more traffic, more processing time, more database connection, slower page loading etc.
Second solution: You create an image loading action in Symfony. The routing is like:
mapimage:
url: /myimage/:image_id.png
param: { module: myimagemodul, action: myimageaction }
You have to create a controller action myimageaction and there you can get the image ID like
$request->getParameter('image_id');
And get the blob data from the database and return it as binary with specific http headers. You can find working examples with simple Googleing, one example:
$this->image = ImagePeer::retrieveByPk ($request->getParameter('image_id'));
$response = $this->getResponse();
$response->clearHttpHeaders();
$response->setContentType ($this->image->getMimeType());
$response->setHttpHeader ('Content-Disposition', 'inline;filename='.$filename);
$content = $this->image->getData();
$response->setContent (stream_get_contents ($content));
$this->setLayout (false);
return sfView::NONE;
So in the template you can do like:
<img src='<?= url_for ('route_to_action_above', array ('image_id' => $image->getId()) ?>'/>
I have found this one at
http://forum.symfony-project.org/viewtopic.php?f=22&t=31207#p109705

Answer 2

This code doesn't make any sense.
Why do you feed binary(read string) data from ->getFilename() to stream_get_contents() which operates ONLY on resource data type? Of course it will complain.
Outputing blob to a browser is as simple as:
$this->getResponse->setContentType('image/jpeg');
echo $data->getFilename(); // assuming filename column is your blob column

Answer 3

try switching your getFilenamePath function to this.
public function getFilenamePath() {
$file_src = '/uploads/gallery/'.$this->getId().'.jpg';
if (file_exists($file_src ) {
return $file_src;
} else {
return false;
}
}

Answer 4

$profile_picture = base64_encode(stream_get_contents($image->getContent()));
echo '<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,'.$profile_picture.'" />';