How do I store images uploaded by end users for each record?

Question

I am writing an application which requires end users to upload an image for each record they add. There could be thousands of images, and they are exclusive to this app. I use a File Browse item in order to let the user choose an image file to upload.
But all I have managed to achieve at the moment is storing the full pathname of where the image is on the users machine, which means they can see the images they upload but no-one else can! Obviously not practical. I haven't figured out how to actually upload the images to the server and achieve multi-user access from there.
My questions are, where is the best place to store these images, in the database or in a folder on the server? And what setups do I, or the DBA, need to do for both of these scenarios in order to save the uploaded images and display them.
Hopefully someone can give advice, or point me to some documentation explaining this procedure. Thanks in anticipation.
Rick.

Answer 1

Hi
The file you upload can be found in APEX_APPLICATION_FILES view. If you are want to store the file as BLOB in your table you can use the code similar to:
             SELECT BLOB_CONTENT, FILENAME, MIME_TYPE
             INTO    v_blob, v_actual_name, V_MIME_TYPE
             FROM   APEX_APPLICATION_FILES
             WHERE name = :P216_FILE;Or directly insert in your table using
             INSERT INTO ......... (.....)
             (SELECT BLOB_CONTENT, FILENAME, MIME_TYPE
             FROM   APEX_APPLICATION_FILES
             WHERE name = :P216_FILE);-----
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