Question

I need to send a GET request to my page pic.php, and I want to get a real picture in return.

For now I implemented this idea like this:

<?php
if ((isset($_GET['pic']))&&(isset($_GET['key']))){
$pic = $_GET['pic'];
$pic=stripslashes($pic);

header('Location: /content/'.$pic);

}
?>

But it’s not really what I want – it redirects to image directly. What I want is to keep the same URL, but get a needed file depending on what values were submitted.
What is the best way to do that?
thx.

Answer 1

This example code snippet should do what you ask. I’ve also included code to only strip slashes if magic quotes is enabled on the server. This will make your code more portable, and compatible with future versions of PHP. I also added use of getimagesize() to detect the MIME type so that you output the proper headers for the image, and do not have to assume it is of a specific type.

<?php
if(isset($_GET['pic']))
{
    //Only strip slashes if magic quotes is enabled.
    $pic = (get_magic_quotes_gpc()) ? stripslashes($_GET['pic']) : $_GET['pic'];

    //Change this to the correct path for your file on the server.
    $pic = '/your/path/to/real/image/location/'.$pic;

    //This will get info about the image, including the mime type.
    //The function is called getimagesize(), which is misleading 
    //because it does much more than that.
    $size = getimagesize($pic);

    //Now that you know the mime type, include it in the header.
    header('Content-type: '.$size['mime']);

    //Read the image and send it directly to the output.
    readfile($pic);
}
?>