Displaying image to IE problem

Indomitus has asked for the wisdom of the Perl Monks concerning the following question:

Hi, I'm trying to display an image from a non-web accessable directory to a webpage via the code that follows. My problem is that when I run the script in Internet Explorer, it tries to download the script and then when the script runs it tries to download the image. As a result I get 2 download windows instead of just one and the image doesn't display in the browser, it opens my local image display program. When I run the script in Mozilla or Netscape 4.7, it works fine, displaying the image in the browser with no problems. Is there any trick to doing this under IE (5.5 or 6)? I found some posts about IE and it's weird mime type behavior but nothing I thought was relevant to my problem. Was I wrong? Should I be doing the mime type stuff differently?

Here's the relevant code:

  my $size = (-s $filename);
# get extension for mime type
  $filename =~ m/\.([^.]+)$/;
  my $image_type = "image/$1";

  print $cgi->header(
        -Content_Type        => "$image_type",
        -Content_Disposition => "attachment; filename=$filename",
        -Content_Length      => $size,
        -Expires             => 'now',
        );

  open(IMG, "<$filename") || die "Cannot open file: $!";
# not needed under linux ??
  binmode(IMG);
  while( <IMG>) { print; };
  close(IMG);
[download]

Thanks

Comment on Displaying image to IE problem Download Code

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(Ovid) Re: Displaying image to IE problem by Ovid (Cardinal) on Mar 21, 2002 at 21:23 UTC
Indomitus wrote: My problem is that when I run the script in Internet Explorer, it tries to download the script and then when the script runs it tries to download the image. I'm not sure I follow you. When using valid URL and you point your browser to a CGI, if the browser tries to download the script, this typically means that the Web server is not configured properly. In otherwords, it tries to send the script to the browser instead of executing it. What I read in your post is that the Web server is sending the script and also executing it? When I run the script in Mozilla or Netscape 4.7, it works fine, displaying the image in the browser with no problems. Now I'm even more confused. You have specified in your header that the content disposition is "attachment". This means that you should be prompted with a download dialog box. This shouldn't be automatically displaying. Side note: `while( <IMG>) { print; };` [download] print takes a list (with an optional FH in front of it). Thus, you can do the following, which I think is cleaner: `print <IMG>;` [download] Cheers, Ovid Join the Perlmonks Setiathome Group or just click on the the link and check out our stats.	[reply] [d/l] [select]
(cLive ;-)Re: Displaying image to IE problem by cLive ;-) (Prior) on Mar 21, 2002 at 22:05 UTC
I think you need to "fool" IE. When you call the script, add an image file extension to the end: `http://www.site.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi?other=parameters&etc=etc&dummy= +image.jpg or add path info to the end http://www.site.com/cgi-bin/script.cgi/image.jpg` [download] At least, I think that was how I solved it... .02 cLive ;-)	[reply] [d/l]