Problem displaying PDF stored in BLOB column

Question

Hello everyone.
I've been trying to follow this tutorial http://asktom.oracle.com/pls/asktom/f?p=100:11:0::::p11_question_id:232814159006 on displaying PDFs stored in BLOB columns. This is being performed on Apex 4.2, with my DB running 11g. I've got my procedure, which I'll post below:
create or replace procedure "PDF" (p_id IN gvo_documents.doc_id%type)
is
    l_lob    blob;
    l_amt    number default 30;
    l_off   number default 1;
    l_raw   raw(4096);
begin
    select contents into l_lob
        from gvo_documents
         where doc_id = p_id;
-- make sure to change this for your type!
    owa_util.mime_header( 'application/pdf' );
    begin
        loop
          dbms_lob.read( l_lob, l_amt, l_off, l_raw );
          htp.prn( utl_raw.cast_to_varchar2( l_raw ) );
          l_off := l_off+l_amt;
          l_amt := 4096;           
    end loop;
        exception
           when no_data_found then
              NULL;
        end;
end;
I am trying to run this through a PL/SQL dynamic region and while I don't receive any error's, the content displayed is a huge mess of garbled text and odd characters. I've tried to run this procedure on numerous other document types, including word files and jpeg images, all with the necessary changes in my procedure, and regardless of what I use, I still get a large mess of strange characters. Does anyone have any information or ideas about why this is happening?

Answer 1

If I understand correctly, your requirements needs to be broken down into two problems:
1) click link that pops up a window displaying a new APEX page
2) an APEX page the displays the document, not downloads it.
I haven't done #1 (yet).
However, you may be able to generate a URL that points to the new page as part of the SELECT statement for the Report.
This has a related question, but no answer yet:
open pdf in popup browser window
The key is target="_blank" for the anchor tag.
To generate the URL, you should use the APEX_UTIL.prepare_URL() function.
If that doesn't work, a Dynamic Action that does some magical JavaScript stuff may be needed.
For #2, I lost the URL that showed how to display a PDF as part of a "form" page.
From what I remember:
Start with a blank page with one blank HTML region (all the Items go in the HTML region)
Add an Item for the PK/Doc_ID
part I forgot Create a Data Manipulation Process
- Automated Row Fetch
- On Load - After Header
- (stuff for your table/view)
part I forgot Create an (I believe) "File Browser" item type. For Settings:
- Storage Type "BLOB column specified in Item Source" (and place the column name of the BLOB there)
- MIME Type Column: (column name) -- since you have multiple types, this is a MUST HAVE
- Filename Column: (column name) -- I highly recommend you have this.
- Content Disposition == INLINE <-- this is the kicker
Also, you will need a Browser Plugin for each of the MIME Types (otherwise, the browser may try to 'download' the file)
Browsers can handle Image types internally. Adobe's plugin can handle PDFs. I don't know about Word/Excel.
Again, I don't remember the exact details, but that should cover most of it.
MK