# Retrieving BLOB image from database using autocomplete selection **URL:** \ **Category:** MySQL database\ **Created:** [October 7, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://www.phphelp.com/t/retrieving-blob-image-from-database-using-autocomplete-selection/32630 "2020-10-07T16:37:37Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 3\ **Page:** 1

**Author:** ![kal-el681](https://www.phphelp.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/k/a183cd/32.png) [@kal-el681](https://www.phphelp.com/u/kal-el681)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 4:37pm UTC](https://www.phphelp.com/t/retrieving-blob-image-from-database-using-autocomplete-selection/32630/1 "2020-10-07T16:37:37Z")

I’m trying to display a blob image stored in a database, I’m not getting any errors but the image isn’t displaying, I’m just getting the default “no image” icon. Here’s my code: ```

``` And the php file: ``` query($sql); $result=mysqli_fetch_array($sth); echo '

'; ?> ``` Any ideas? ---

**Author:** ![JimL](https://www.phphelp.com/user_avatar/www.phphelp.com/jiml/32/1842_2.png) [@JimL](https://www.phphelp.com/u/JimL)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2020, 5:18pm UTC](https://www.phphelp.com/t/retrieving-blob-image-from-database-using-autocomplete-selection/32630/2 "2020-10-07T17:18:23Z")

How are you storing the image into the database? Do you absolutely have to store images (any binary file) in the database? It’s considered really bad practice as a blob of data has no real use in a relational database as you can’t query it in any sensible way. The recommended method is to just store the filename (and optionally path/host) to the database and serve it from the file system ---

**Author:** ![skawid](https://www.phphelp.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/s/bbe5ce/32.png) [@skawid](https://www.phphelp.com/u/skawid)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2020, 11:59am UTC](https://www.phphelp.com/t/retrieving-blob-image-from-database-using-autocomplete-selection/32630/3 "2020-10-08T11:59:59Z")

What does your output HTML look like? Particularly the `` tag.