Loading image from database

Question

Hi all,
The structure of my application is :
- a flex client
- a tomcat server
- a mysql database
I use hibernate to retrieve my objects from the database.
I'm trying to have the flex client display images loaded at
runtime from the database. Those images are stored as byte arrays
(byte[]) and were produced in java with the following type of code
: ImageIO.write(myBufferedImage, "PNG", myByteArrayOutputStream);
so those byte arrays pretty much represent the content of a png
image file.
Is there any chance I might be able to produce a BitmapData
out of the ByteArray instance I'll retrieve on the flex side or
should I rely on some kind of a decoder ? Another solution could be
to rewrite my storing mechanism but I'm trying, as much as
possible, to avoid having to modify my current database content ;)
Thanks in advance,
Pierre.

Answer 1

Thanks for the quick response.
quote:
Yes. Sure, this should work. Have you tried it? Are you
having any problems?
Actually, I haven't.. yet (I'm currently migrating this
project from echo2 to flex and I haven't reached the point where I
can really test anything). I should be able to create a prototype
quickly though ;) .
quote:
Easiest check would to start off with <Image> component
and set it's url to the servlet that's pumping image bytes and see
if it displays it right. ATTA
Good idea... Thanks for the pointer. My first intention was
to directly use the ByteArray retrieved through FDS to create some
kind of an image, client side but, as you mentioned Image, I read
through the code of both this class and its parent class SWFLoader.
It turns out that this class relies on the use of a Loader
(couldn't find the source ;( ). It's kind of a pity that there
should be no obvious means to directly feed the Image instance with
the content (or the Loader, if that's where the PNG decoding
occurs) through a ByteArray format. Anyway, your suggestion of
creating a Servlet to retrieve the image content is indeed a good
idea. I should be able to store some kind of an image id in my
object that I could use as a parameter of the servlet's url. So
much for trying to leave my current database intact but I can't
think of any other way, considering my very small current knowledge
of the whole flex framework.
Thanks again for the tip. I'll come back later on with the
results of my tests...
Pierre.