CODEWITHSUNDEEP
cakephphttp-headersmime-types
brizz
brizz

Reputation: 271

How can CakePHP return a Mimetype header of JPG?

Found this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/7198124/setting-the-header-to-be-content-image-in-cakephp

but either not understanding, or its not working for me.

Basically want to record 'opens' for emails. Currently it "works" but in gmail it shows that an image is not being displayed--so I want to return an actual image header. I've tried doing:

    $this->layout=false;
    $this->response->type('jpg');

In the Controller for Opens, but that is not working.

Web Sniffer (http://web-sniffer.net/), is showing a jpeg response, but still have a blank no file found image. How can I fix?

[edit]

Thinking this:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/900207/return-a-php-page-as-an-image

and this:

http://book.cakephp.org/2.0/en/controllers/request-response.html

might be solution

Upvotes: 0

Views: 1501

Answers (3)

ndm
ndm

Reputation: 60453

Gmails caching proxy

Normally serving a real image as suggest by AD7Six would be the way to go, however with Gmails caching proxy in place you may run into problems when just serving an image.

http://www.emailmarketingtipps.de/2013/12/07/gmails-image-caching-affects-email-marketing-heal-opens-tracking/

The problem is/was that the image has been cached, and the proxy wouldn't request it a second time, making tracking of opens unreliable.

Content length to the rescue

Until recently the workaround for this has been to respond with a content length of 0 (and private cache control which seems to be necessary for some other webmail providers):

// ...

$this->response->header(array
(
    'Cache-Control'  => 'private',
    'Content-Length' => 0
));
$this->response->type('gif');
return $this->response;

This would return a response with no content body, which is treated as broken, however not all clients did actually show a broken image symbol, still it was recommended to hide the image using styles on the img tag.

Return of cache control

However it has been reported that Gmail made some changes recently so that sending a no-cache header is now being respected again.

http://blog.movableink.com/real-time-content-and-re-open-tracking-return-to-gmail/

So in addition to AD7Six example an appropriate Cache-Control header might now do the trick

// ...

$this->response->header(array
(
    'Cache-Control' => 'no-cache, max-age=0'
));
$this->response->file('/path/to/1x1.gif');
return $this->response;

Upvotes: 0

AD7six
AD7six

Reputation: 66170

Serve a real image

If you only send the headers for an image, but don't send the image content - it will be considered a broken image. To send a file refer to the documentation for whichever version of CakePHP you are using. For example in 2.3+:

public function opened() {
    ...

    $this->response->file('/path/to/1x1.gif');
    return $this->response;
}

Upvotes: 2

brizz
brizz

Reputation: 271

Pretty sure this worked:

    $name = './img/open.jpg';
    $fp = fopen($name, 'rb');


    $this->response->header("Content-Type: image/jpg");
    $this->response->header("Content-Length: " . filesize($name));
    fpassthru($fp);

Where open.jpg is a 1x1 real pixel image in cakephp's /img directory.

Would love if someone else could confirm?

Getting:

 ����JFIF``��C      $.' ",#(7),01444'9=82<.342��C     2!!22222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222222��"����������?����

Going to manually (so I'm guessing thats a "real" image file?). No longer getting gmails no image file icon.

nvermind--websniff says this is a html request. will update when I figure out.

[edit]

think this might be correct way:

    $this->response->type('jpg');
    $this->response->file('./img/open.jpg');

just tested, and definitely getting a 1x1 pixel download. No jibberish like above.

Upvotes: 0

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