PDF Image printing, base64encoded blobs

Question

Hi guys!
I'm trying to extract images from a table (blob) and put it in a PDF-report, through ApEx.
After reading this blogpost about image-blobs in reports(http://blogs.oracle.com/xmlpublisher/2006/05/05#a34) I thought "this was interesting, this is exactly what my customer want". So, I made a function to dump the blob as base64-data (found some codesnippets here and there..):
function BLOB2CLOBASE64( p_blob IN BLOB ) RETURN CLOB
IS
pos PLS_INTEGER := 1;
buffer VARCHAR2( 32767 );
res CLOB;
lob_len INTEGER := DBMS_LOB.getLength( p_blob );
BEGIN
DBMS_LOB.createTemporary( res, TRUE );
DBMS_LOB.OPEN( res, DBMS_LOB.LOB_ReadWrite );
LOOP
buffer := utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2(utl_encode.base64_encode( DBMS_LOB.SUBSTR( p_blob, 32000, pos )));
IF LENGTH( buffer ) > 0 THEN
DBMS_LOB.writeAppend( res, LENGTH( buffer ), buffer );
END IF;
pos := pos + 32000;
EXIT WHEN pos > lob_len;
END LOOP;
RETURN res; -- res is OPEN here
END BLOB2CLOBASE64;
Works great! I get the imagefile dumped as base64.
So, time to try this out. I make a Report query in ApEx, and
do a
"select blob2clobase64(image_file) IMAGE from testphotos"
XML gets dumped, and I can load it into my BI Publisher Desktop/Word. I do like it's done in the blogpost above, and enter the following for the IMAGE-field:
<fo:instream-foreign-object content-type="image/jpg">
<xsl:value-of select="IMAGE"/>
</fo:instream-foreign-object>
(In the examplecode from the above blog-link; see how this code is entered in the Help-section when you do "Properties" for the field).
Ok, here goes, let's give it a try: Preview -> PDF and out pops two wonderful pictures that's in my table 'testphotos '. Hooray!
I save the template, and upload it to ApEx through the Create Report Query-wizard. Go to the last page. Press "Test query". Out comes: A PDF-file with all the text from the template, but no pictures.
What have gone wrong? Any inputs?
Thanks for now,
Vidar
PS: Size of the 2 images together is 10-15kb max.
PS2: Application Express 3.0.0.00.20
Message was edited by:
Vidar
: added apex versioninfo

Answer 1

Hello
Just wanted to give this a bump, as I made this thread just before the weekend. It's dropped quite long, so thought I'd bring it upfront again now that people might be back.
Regards,
Vidar