What are the differences between using the Header function and base64_encode to display the image?

When displaying an image in PHP, you can either use the Header function to set the content type to image and directly output the image data, or you can encode the image data using base64_encode and embed it in an HTML image tag. Using the Header function is more efficient as it directly streams the image data to the browser without encoding it, while base64 encoding the image data can increase the size of the HTML document and slow down the loading time. However, base64 encoding can be useful when you need to embed images in email templates or when you want to prevent hotlinking of images. 

// Using the Header function to display the image
header('Content-Type: image/jpeg');
readfile('image.jpg');
```

```php
// Using base64_encode to display the image
$imageData = base64_encode(file_get_contents('image.jpg'));
echo '<img src="data:image/jpeg;base64,'.$imageData.'">';

Keywords

Header function base64_encode image display PHP differences

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