Output an Image in PHP

Question

I have an image $file ( eg ../image.jpg )

which has a mime type $type

How can I output it to the browser?

Answer 1

^{(Expanding on the accepted answer...)}

I needed to:

1. log views of a jpg image and an animated gif, and,
2. ensure that the images are never cached (so every view is logged), and,
3. also retain the original file extensions.

---

I accomplished this by creating a "secondary" .htaccess file in the sub-folder where the images are located.
The file contains only one line:

AddHandler application/x-httpd-lsphp .jpg .jpeg .gif

In the same folder, I placed the two 'original' image files (we'll call them orig.jpg and orig.gif), as well as two variations of the [simplified] script below (saved as myimage.jpg and myimage.gif)...

connect_error) {         //if connected then save mySQL record
   $conn->query("INSERT INTO imageclicks (image, ip) VALUES ('$url', '$ip');");
     $conn->close();  //(datetime is auto-added to table with default of 'now')
  } 

  //display the image
  $imgfile='orig.jpg';                             // or 'orig.gif'
  header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');              // or 'image/gif'
  header('Content-Length: '.filesize($imgfile));
  header('Cache-Control: no-cache');
  readfile($imgfile);
?>

The images render (or animate) normally and can be called in any of the normal ways for images (like an tag), and will save a record of the visiting IP, while invisible to the user.