mysql - image storing

Hi list, I try to store/retrieve pictures into MySQL. I know that a lot of people will say this is not a good practice, so here are briefly my reasons: -I want to protect that pictures (restricted access) -I don't want to use htaccess as I want my users to be able to modify their password whenever they want, and I don't want to modify dynamically an htaccess file. -I could store them on the filesystem (my actual solution), but I have only few pictures, so I would like to give the MySQL option a trial. I found on the web a lot of tutorials on how to do that, they almost all look like this one http://www.phpbuilder.com/columns/florian19991014.php3?page=1 I went through a lot of forums, saw a lot of problems and still am unable to make it work for me. Here are my scripts -for the upload into mysql I suppose all is ok as I am able to visualize the pictures through phpMyAdmin -for the retrieval <?require ("./connexion.php"); $result = mysql_query("select * from images_binaires where id=1;") or die(mysql_error()); while( $row = mysql_fetch_array($result ) ) { $donnees=stripslashes($row[donnees_binaires]); $type=$row[type_fichier]; $taille_fichier=$row[taille_fichier]; } if ($donnees) { header('Content-Type: image/png'); header('Content-Length: $taille_fichier'); echo $donnees; } else { echo 'error'; } ?> and the calling script: <? require ("./connexion.php"); echo"<img src='./afficher_image_public.php'>"; ?> what I can say: -no problem with connexion, it retrieves data (echo of $donnees without header) -when I retrieve the data without the header, they look "normal", no excess of slashes for example. -I tried to open the file with "rb" for upload (even if it's supposed to be by default now) -I tried to put the header on top of the script -I tried different combinations with addslashes/stripslashes, trim in case of spaces, mysql_real_escape_string... -I also tried with imagecreatefromstring(), even if I saw that it shouldn't be necessary. -I think I shouldn't need the GD library, but it's installed anyway If somebody can help? Thanks! _________________________________________________________________ It's fast, it's easy and it's free. Get MSN Messenger today! http://www.msn.co.uk/messenger