Problem with images and require

[Tim Ward]

I'm trying to make an image which is a chart of some data. The graphics code
on its own works fine - this is a file which in outline is:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );
?>

which is then included in a web page via an <img> tag.

All OK so far.

The problem comes when I want to pull the data from my database rather than
drawing a chart of hard coded dummy data. Naturally this involves including
some other files with database functions in, like:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
require "some.file" ;
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );
?>

This stops it all working. Internet Explorer now shows a broken image icon
for the image, whether loading the image file directly or via the web page
with the <img> tag. What's in the required file? All the ones I've tried
have caused this problem; the minimal one has some white space, comments,
and a function declaration. (The required files all work OK on other web
pages that aren't generating images, of course.)

What's going on please?

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Ltd - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

[Agelmar]

Tim Ward wrote:

I'm trying to make an image which is a chart of some data. The
graphics code on its own works fine - this is a file which in outline
is:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );

which is then included in a web page via an <img> tag.

All OK so far.

The problem comes when I want to pull the data from my database
rather than drawing a chart of hard coded dummy data. Naturally this
involves including some other files with database functions in, like:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
require "some.file" ;
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );

This stops it all working. Internet Explorer now shows a broken image
icon for the image, whether loading the image file directly or via
the web page with the <img> tag. What's in the required file? All the
ones I've tried have caused this problem; the minimal one has some
white space, comments, and a function declaration. (The required
files all work OK on other web pages that aren't generating images,
of course.)

What's going on please?

If I had to guess, I'd say that the files you require() or include() either
output something (which is going to be interpreted as image data, and will
cause the image to be invalid) or have some whitespace somewhere outside of
<?php ... ?> (likely after the ?>) that gets outputted, and causes the same
problem. Make sure that all the included files
a) have *nothing* before the <?php, including whitespace
b) output *nothing*
c) have nothing after the ?>, including whitespace, line-returns etc.

[Tim Ward]

"Agelmar" <if**********@c omcast.net> wrote in message
news:bt******** ****@ID-30799.news.uni-berlin.de...

If I had to guess, I'd say that the files you require() or include() either output something (which is going to be interpreted as image data, and will
cause the image to be invalid) or have some whitespace somewhere outside of <?php ... ?> (likely after the ?>) that gets outputted, and causes the same problem. Make sure that all the included files
a) have *nothing* before the <?php, including whitespace
b) output *nothing*
c) have nothing after the ?>, including whitespace, line-returns etc.

There are quite likely newlines after the ?> in the included files, I'll
check.

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Ltd - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

[Agelmar]

Agelmar wrote:

Tim Ward wrote:

I'm trying to make an image which is a chart of some data. The
graphics code on its own works fine - this is a file which in outline
is:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );

<snip>
Also, one more note...
all predefined function names are lowercase. You really should use lowercase
when you write them. As it is right now, function names are
case-insensitive, but there have been a few votes in the past about making
names case sensitive (as it would speed things up a bit), not to mention its
simply better style to use the proper case.

[Tim Ward]

"Agelmar" <if**********@c omcast.net> wrote in message
news:bt******** ****@ID-30799.news.uni-berlin.de...

Also, one more note...
all predefined function names are lowercase. You really should use lowercase when you write them. As it is right now, function names are
case-insensitive, but there have been a few votes in the past about making
names case sensitive (as it would speed things up a bit), not to mention its simply better style to use the proper case.

Yeah, that's some code I downloaded from somewhere to give me a kickstart
with images, I probably do read the manual properly for stuff I write myself
....

Removing the newlines from after the ?>s in the included files does seem to
make a difference - thanks. (Not quite clear why I didn't get that for
myself, maybe I should only code when sober.)

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Ltd - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

[CountScubula]

"Tim Ward" <ti*@brettward. co.uk> wrote in message
news:bt******** ****@ID-154437.news.uni-berlin.de...

I'm trying to make an image which is a chart of some data. The graphics code on its own works fine - this is a file which in outline is:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );
?>

which is then included in a web page via an <img> tag.

All OK so far.

The problem comes when I want to pull the data from my database rather than drawing a chart of hard coded dummy data. Naturally this involves including some other files with database functions in, like:

<?php
Header ('Content-Type: image/png');
require "some.file" ;
$img = ImageCreate (100, 100);
..... (draw some stuff) ....
ImagePNG( $img );
?>

This stops it all working. Internet Explorer now shows a broken image icon
for the image, whether loading the image file directly or via the web page
with the <img> tag. What's in the required file? All the ones I've tried
have caused this problem; the minimal one has some white space, comments,
and a function declaration. (The required files all work OK on other web
pages that aren't generating images, of course.)

What's going on please?

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Ltd - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

there may be some data output from you included files
turn on output buffering,
then clear the output buffer before you send the image

also, after you send the image, use an exit(); just in case you may have
some blank lines after the last closing ?> tag
--
Mike Bradley
http://gzen.myhq.info -- free online php tools

[Tim Ward]

"CountScubu la" <[e-mail] mail.com> wrote in message
news:yy******** ********@newssv r27.news.prodig y.com...

there may be some data output from you included files

Yes, it was the newlines after the ?>.

I *hate* languages in which the spelling of white space is significant -
you'd have thought that after the disaster of the original makefile syntax
nobody would have dared do that again!!

--
Tim Ward - posting as an individual unless otherwise clear
Brett Ward Ltd - www.brettward.co.uk
Cambridge Accommodation Notice Board - www.brettward.co.uk/canb
Cambridge City Councillor

[Andy Hassall]

On Sat, 3 Jan 2004 09:55:41 -0000, "Tim Ward" <ti*@brettward. co.uk> wrote:

"CountScubul a" <[e-mail] mail.com> wrote in message
news:yy******* *********@newss vr27.news.prodi gy.com...

there may be some data output from you included files

Yes, it was the newlines after the ?>.

I *hate* languages in which the spelling of white space is significant -
you'd have thought that after the disaster of the original makefile syntax
nobody would have dared do that again!!

Actually whitespace is not sigificant to PHP - in your case it wasn't even in
the source code at all, it was outside the <?php ?>, and so was literal data to
send to the browser.

Presumably you're not a fan of the Python language then ;-)

--
Andy Hassall (an**@andyh.co. uk) icq(5747695) (http://www.andyh.co.uk)
Space: disk usage analysis tool (http://www.andyhsoftware.co.uk/space)