List,
I find the following situation one which arises many times for me when
creating modperl applications for people. However, I always find myself
thinking there is a better way to do it. I wondered if the list would like
to share their thoughts on the best way. It concerns storing and serving
images/media uploaded by users of the webpage.
An example could be a website letting you set up your own shops to sell
products. The shop maker may allow you to upload preview images of products.
Assuming the product data is stored in a database, I personally wouldnt
store the binary image in the databas (assuming mysql here). A solution
springing to mind is to store a hash/id in the database and have a common
directory (/htdocs/_previews/) which holds the pictures named after that
hash/id. That way, either the modperl application can auto create the link
using src=/htdocs/_previews/imageid.jpg or a lightweight handler can be
used. For example /getimage?id=asdf09sd8fsa could then rewrite the uri to
the real location or perform a content subrequest and let apache serve the
image that way. Of course there are many solutions, but I'm wondering. Is
there a best one?
Any thoughts appreciated. I realise that the same situation might occur
using vanilla cgi, but mod_perl provides unique ways of solving the problem,
hence I post to this list.
Richard.
