Retrieve an image from the server, store it in localStorage, and display it

Question

This should be simple enough, but after wrestling with it for hours, I still can't get it to work. So far, all my attempts have resulted in the image becoming 'corrupted or truncated', according to firefox.

Retrieve the image from the server with a jquery-ajax call:

 $.ajax({
                async: false,
                url: db[key]["DocumentLink"],
                success: function (result2) {

Base64 encode the image, and store it in localStore:
In this example I'm using the jquery base64-encoding plugin, but I've tried several.

                        var dbKey = "Doc " + db[key]["ID"] + " " + db[key]["Title"];
                        console.log("storing: " + db[key]["DocumentLink"] + " in " + dbKey + "\n");
                        localStorage.removeItem(dbKey);
                        var base64Image = $.base64Encode(result2);
                        console.log(base64Image.length);
                        localStorage.setItem(dbKey, base64Image);
                       console.log("is stored: " + db[key]["DocumentLink"] + " in " + dbKey + "\n");
                }
})

Display the image with a data url:

function openImageFromDB(dbKey) {
    console.log("Trying to display image with key " + dbKey);
    var base64Img = localStorage.getItem(dbKey);
    document.getElementById("documentHolder").src='data:image/jpeg;base64,' + base64Img;
}

The corresponding img:

 <img id="documentHolder" alt="Image view placeholder" src="" />

However, on every try, firefox displays:

Image corrupt or truncated: data:image/jpeg;base64,77+977+977+977+9a<... much longer string>

The Url: points to a valid jpeg image, and the base64Image.length and the error message show that the var / localStorage actually contain what seems to be base64 encoded data.

Any ideas?

Answer 1

• DEMO: http://so.lucafilosofi.com/retrieve-an-image-from-the-server-store-it-in-localstorage-and-display-it

Javascript (AJAX call)

function LoadImg(filename) {
    var xmlhttp;
    if (window.XMLHttpRequest) { // code for IE7+, Firefox, Chrome, Opera, Safari
        xmlhttp = new XMLHttpRequest();
    } else { // code for IE6, IE5
        xmlhttp = new ActiveXObject("Microsoft.XMLHTTP");
    }
    xmlhttp.onreadystatechange = function() {
        if (xmlhttp.readyState == 4 && xmlhttp.status == 200) {     
            document.getElementById("documentHolder").src = "data:image/png;base64," + xmlhttp.responseText;
        }
    };    
    xmlhttp.open("GET", 'load.php?LoadImg='+filename );
    xmlhttp.send(null);
}

PHP ( load.php )

<?php
 if (isset($_GET['LoadImg'])) {
  header("Content-Type: image/png");
  $file = file_get_contents($_GET['LoadImg']);
  echo base64_encode($file);
}
?>

---

Read this may help you:

• Base 64 encode vs loading an image file
• How to encode image data within an HTML file?
• How can you encode a string to Base64 in JavaScript?
• Get image data in JavaScript?

PS: maybe your Base64 is wrong?

Answer 2

Browsers have size limitations other than the localStorage limit of 5MB. The data for the <img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,..."> is also restricted and is usually much less than 5MB. The easiest way around this is to just pass the file-names via localStorage and let the browsers caching do the work.

Answer 3

Turns out, AJAX can't be used to reliably transfer binary data. The solution is to run the Base64 encoding server-side, and transfer the resulting string through AJAX.

The above php-code works. For whoever is looking for a ASP.Net / C# solution:

    public string Image(string relpath)
    {
        Response.ContentType = "image/jpeg";

        string base64;
        string filename = Request.PhysicalApplicationPath + relpath;
        try
        {
            using (var fs = new FileStream(filename, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
            {
                var buffer = new byte[fs.Length];
                fs.Read(buffer, 0, (int)fs.Length);
                base64 = Convert.ToBase64String(buffer);
            }
        }
        catch (IOException e)
        {
            return filename + " / " + e.Message;
        }
        return base64;
    }

Please note that this code is NOT SECURE to expose directly to the outer world. I personally use a wrapper-function that parses the path from a db.

Answer 4

You can get the data uri (which will contain the base 64 encoding) via JavaScript using the HTML5 canvas element.

        // I'm assuming here you've put the image in an <img> tag on the page already.
        // If not, you'll need to adapt this a bit, or perhaps this approach is just
        // not right for your situation.
        var image = document.getElementById('id-of-image-you-want');

        var canvas = w.document.createElement("canvas"); 
        canvas.width = image.width;
        canvas.height = image.height;

        var ctx = canvas.getContext("2d");
        ctx.drawImage(image, 0, 0);
        try {
            var dataUri = canvas.toDataURL();    
        } catch (e) {
            console.log("D'oh!"); // Improve this error handling, obviously.
        }

dataUri will now contain the data uri for the image which will contain, along with a short prefix, the base 64 encoding of the image.

Be sure to add detection for canvas support. IE 8 and older do not support it.