Display PDF stored in database

Question

A page has a region of type “PL/SQL Procedure (anonymous block)” and the following region source:
BEGIN
get_image(3660);
END;
The code for the Get_Image procedure is shown below. This procedure extracts PDF images from a BLOB column in the database.
When the page is executed, a popup window with the title “File Download” appears and the user is asked whether to open or save the file. If the user chooses to open the file, another popup window appears in which the user is asked to select the program to be used to open the file. If the user selects Acrobat Reader, the PDF image is displayed correctly. How can the image be displayed without any user intervention?
The get_image procedure is as follows:
PROCEDURE get_image (id_in IN NUMBER) IS
vblob BLOB;
buf RAW(32000);
buf_size INTEGER := 32000;
offset INTEGER := 1;
len NUMBER;
mime_type VARCHAR2(30);
BEGIN
-- get image_data and its mime type from the database
SELECT image,image_type
INTO vblob,mime_type
FROM payslip_archive_local
WHERE id=id_in;
owa_util.mime_header(mime_type, false);
owa_util.http_header_close;
wpg_docload.download_file(vblob);
-- set the mime type for the http protocol
owa_util.mime_header(mime_type);
-- read the data with htp package
len:=dbms_lob.getlength(vblob);
WHILE offset < len
LOOP
dbms_lob.read(vblob,buf_size,offset,buf);
htp.prn(utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(buf));
offset:=offset+buf_size;
END LOOP;
-- check for exception
EXCEPTION
WHEN OTHERS THEN
htp.p(SQLCODE || SQLERRM);
END get_image;
Vincent

Answer 1

Hi,
Forms can only show binary formats that are wrapped as OLE components and we discourage using this because OLE wont work on teh web, which is the only runtime available for Forms 9i and above.
I suggest writing a Java Servlet that streams the document from the database to the local client
Frank