open(frontFILE, $imageFront.'.gif');
	read (frontFILE, $blobFront, -s "$imageFront");
	close frontFILE;				
	open(backFILE, $imageBack.'.gif');
	read (backFILE, $blobBack, -s "$imageBack");
	close backFILE;

	my $sth=$db->prepare("Insert INTO docs (FrontImg,BackImg,docID) values (?,?,?);
	$sth->execute($blobFront, $blobBack, $docID) or die $sth->errstr;

##</code><code>##

        my $whichImage = 'e5c59e0d-fc0e-4d8e-9fa5-7b3bac6f8f25';

	#getting the image from the db
        my $db=DBI->connect('DBI:Sybase:server='.$server,$sql_user,$sql_password);
        $db->do("use ".$database) ;
        my $statement = "select FrontImg, BackImg, docid from docs where docid = '$whichImage'";
        my @rows=@{$db->selectall_arrayref($statement, {Slice => {}})} ;
        unless( @rows){die "$statement \ndidn't find the image ".@rows;}
        #there should only be one record returned -- docid is the primary key
	my $data = $rows[0];

        #to get the same image from file instead of the db:
        open FILE, "<$filebase".'/1001-1-B.gif' ;
        my $blob;
        read(FILE, $blob, -s $Lockbox::Web::CONFIG{filebase}.'/1001-1-B.gif');
        close FILE;

	#the following line displays only the dreaded empty box w/a red 'x'
	#instead of the image from the database
	print $q->header(type=>'image/gif', Content_Length=>length($data->{BackImg})).$data->{BackImg} ;

	#the following line displays the image from the file correctly
	#but i need to get it from the db instead
	#print $q->header(type=>'image/gif', Content_Length=>length($blob)).$blob ;

        if($blob ne $data->{BackImg}){die $data->{BackImg}."\nlength=".length($data->{BackImg})."\nfile image = ".$blob."\nlength=".length($blob);}