What is the recommended method for displaying images stored in a MySQL database in a web browser?

When displaying images stored in a MySQL database in a web browser, the recommended method is to retrieve the image data from the database using PHP, set the appropriate content type header for the image, and then output the image data directly to the browser. This can be achieved by creating a PHP script that fetches the image data from the database based on a unique identifier (such as an image ID) and outputs it with the correct content type.

<?php
// Connect to MySQL database
$connection = mysqli_connect("localhost", "username", "password", "database");

// Get image ID from URL parameter
$image_id = $_GET['image_id'];

// Retrieve image data from database
$query = "SELECT image_data, image_type FROM images WHERE id = $image_id";
$result = mysqli_query($connection, $query);
$row = mysqli_fetch_assoc($result);

// Set appropriate content type header
header("Content-type: " . $row['image_type']);

// Output image data
echo $row['image_data'];