[php] PHP, display image with Header()

I'm displaying images from outside my web root, like this:

header('Content-type:image/png');
readfile($fullpath);

The content-type: image/png is what confuses me.

Someone else helped me out with this code, but I noticed that not all images are PNG. Many are jpg or gif.
And still they are displayed successfully.

does anyone know why?

if you know the file name, but don't know the file extention you can use this function:

public function showImage($name)
    {

         $types = [
             'gif'=> 'image/gif',
             'png'=> 'image/png',
             'jpeg'=> 'image/jpeg',
             'jpg'=> 'image/jpeg',
         ];
         $root_path  = '/var/www/my_app'; //use your framework to get this properly ..
         foreach($types as $type=>$meta){
             if(file_exists($root_path .'/uploads/'.$name  .'.'. $type)){
                 header('Content-type: ' . $meta);
                 readfile($root_path .'/uploads/'.$name .'.'. $type);
                 return;
             }
         }
    }

Note: the correct content-type for JPG files is image/jpeg.

Browsers make their best guess with the data they receive. This works for markup (which Websites often get wrong) and other media content. A program that receives a file can often figure out what its received regardless of the MIME content type it's been told.

This isn't something you should rely on however. It's recommended you always use the correct MIME content.

Browsers can often tell the image type by sniffing out the meta information of the image. Also, there should be a space in that header:

header('Content-type: image/png');

There is a better why to determine type of an image. with exif_imagetype

If you use this function, you can tell image's real extension.

_{with this function filename's extension is completely irrelevant, which is good.}

function setHeaderContentType(string $filePath): void
{
    $numberToContentTypeMap = [
        '1' => 'image/gif',
        '2' => 'image/jpeg',
        '3' => 'image/png',
        '6' => 'image/bmp',
        '17' => 'image/ico'
    ];

    $contentType = $numberToContentTypeMap[exif_imagetype($filePath)] ?? null;
    
    if ($contentType === null) {
        throw new Exception('Unable to determine content type of file.');
    }

    header("Content-type: $contentType");
}

You can add more types from the link.

Hope it helps.

Though weirdly named, you can use the getimagesize() function. This will also give you mime information:

Array
(
    [0] => 295 // width
    [1] => 295 // height
    [2] => 3 // http://php.net/manual/en/image.constants.php
    [3] => width="295" height="295" // width and height as attr's
    [bits] => 8
    [mime] => image/png
)