Why Are My Images Not Displaying Correctly When Retrieved from a MySQL BLOB Alongside Text?

Understanding Image Display Issues When Retrieving from MySQL BLOB

When retrieving images stored as BLOBs in a MySQL database, displaying them alongside additional content can present challenges. One common issue occurs when attempting to output any text before displaying the image. This issue can cause the image to be hidden or display incorrectly.

The problem stems from the nature of BLOBs. When data is stored in a BLOB, it's treated as a binary large object. When headers are sent to output the image, subsequent text output is considered part of the binary data. This can lead to unexpected behavior in browsers.

Solution

To resolve this issue and display both the image and other text, one solution is to convert the BLOB image content into base64 format. Base64 encoding allows the image to be represented as a text string.

echo '<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,' . base64_encode($row['imageContent']) . '" />';
echo 'Hello world.';

By encoding the image data in base64, the browser can now recognize it as an image, even if there is accompanying text output. This method allows for the display of both the image and additional content.

Note that using this approach can impact performance and is not ideal for large or frequently displayed images. For optimal performance, consider storing the images as separate files outside of the database.

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