I want to have a CGI script return a simple 1x1 transparent gif. However, I wanted to avoid opening the gif file, reading the contents, printing the contents and then closing the file.

I tried this (on a windows nt box), but it didn't work:

print "Content-type: image/gif\n\n";
binmode(STDOUT);
print 0x47, 0x49, 0x46, 0x38, 0x39, 0x61, 0x01, 0x00, 0x01, 0x00, 0x80
+, 0x00, 0x00, 0xff, 0xff, 0xff, 0x00, 0x00, 0x00, 0x2c, 0x00, 0x00, 0
+x00, 0x00, 0x01, 0x00, 0x01, 0x00, 0x00, 0x02, 0x02, 0x44, 0x01, 0x00
+, 0x3B;

[download]

The print statement is the hex representation of a 1x1 transparent gif file. Why didn't this work and is there something similar I can do?

Many thanks,
meraxes

In reply to CGI: print a gif directly from a print statement by meraxes

Title:
Use:  <p> text here (a paragraph) </p>
and:  <code> code here </code>
to format your post, it's "PerlMonks-approved HTML":


  • Posts are HTML formatted. Put <p> </p> tags around your paragraphs. Put <code> </code> tags around your code and data!
  • Titles consisting of a single word are discouraged, and in most cases are disallowed outright.
  • Read Where should I post X? if you're not absolutely sure you're posting in the right place.
  • Please read these before you post! —
  • Posts may use any of the Perl Monks Approved HTML tags:
    a, abbr, b, big, blockquote, br, caption, center, col, colgroup, dd, del, details, div, dl, dt, em, font, h1, h2, h3, h4, h5, h6, hr, i, ins, li, ol, p, pre, readmore, small, span, spoiler, strike, strong, sub, summary, sup, table, tbody, td, tfoot, th, thead, tr, tt, u, ul, wbr
  • You may need to use entities for some characters, as follows. (Exception: Within code tags, you can put the characters literally.)
            For:     Use:
    & &amp;
    < &lt;
    > &gt;
    [ &#91;
    ] &#93;
  • Link using PerlMonks shortcuts! What shortcuts can I use for linking?
  • See Writeup Formatting Tips and other pages linked from there for more info.