3

Go to this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qrO4YZeyl0I on Firefox6.0

enter image description here

Now, right click on the black image (View Background Image), you will see this in the address bar:

data:image/png;base64,iVBORw0KGgoAAAANSUhEUgAAAFMAAABTCAMAAADUbMsyAAAAGFBMVEUlJSUkJCQmJiYjIyMnJycoKCgiIiIhISE/mG+dAAAAGXRFWHRTb2Z0d2FyZQBBZG9iZSBJbWFnZVJlYWR5ccllPAAABb5JREFUWMO1mdlyXEcMQw8Wdv7/j/PAvrJVsZORPPGLq2ZsNRcQACkOgyEYEC60NQZMAJnnzxE60WDZrcEWBApBgzHII5QUMDY1IKVAAVdOAAIBjWVFtkkQyBHCyGc2NuHD0cZJjdEYxQhXahQjU4QZgoKREUWACM1gI/Prh/ZLA8qpJVAqiJAGbIwwJkRJiF2Bi5+0ZKs2BFnFgiPXKkSAg2KlaHBkUMCSLbLhYUGJdBDx/jfV59bcKAoBWqwjOCCrtiSLJrVjhEzY5BBBMbSQ4HHwkSTgIAlsF2xjTAFOfxPQq+mgp6Pg/Vtbt+dFyT4LkYJxPaaYCSyg/pIyMEJ2DxwtSr0/qS7FOh027+xzhLJwUKyFUoY2xpUiE0kI26YlaUg3GEoKiy7L+26ptMlSyxgytlDRZi7JVFNZaDsF7FuVuQOEhRGA/pJlbZYwffD9fI+9RQELj704Pux4RsLJbNNn7izuoGoH3PKPmkgaOaQX6XUZ5vm2BMHguW3lwMTBQcYBkdZPcuHEPLWSrEVDizUBaPBQsqWv5Aq3RiG+bbVU2+5gXKHooa+AOR9cceGuLfwUvGlXSFm2k+G02NLEhATq13mxQIqK6e1zsCRZY2dup4paZXr4aJfaoG0nd56p/TEtxmAzCnag0i1CXSRZXrhsuy1hb2yit2yE44NsJGlfP8sB28MwxgPEDi4R1mLxwbjNbO8GEcm2MNFBiFutAKq3HlLjfCR8YTfKuWQJzRPDi0zzJeoDb3A4hNmGamxboQMilsymhPaflygt3U8k2DZTvkc9zorlL5mCH+wsXOMaZGf7OOLpdATKzpkwx1Yvm/YZOnsuKOojO1WwtnKxToSgWFVW1ubC+jZGq9L2ftqd0y+LzQvpLPItSIthoBI4whVm43+dbHiBY3dQz31LJw9NcyFLaRmWWgzWmY3GOIt5MSjjK6xHC9cKckykylY2hMgIVVwv8e5hvxDGSHKlNS87b2HpCS1sfTpXK3L93A91/qQ+HENBRbXWxjHcx75lfPjCfLyqpDDXrkKT9R7SYzuMvX4wCwrnIk9hx9yX7LY7Ev3GmPwnOWLDONt5tHV5VHK1SV2rm6okErNDayN5Btm2o8PwoBH9zAYh+2nlq71SuxQr2PrpBghQfwrt4FYYyWXNmLf7zUKlDkqhFGpXEa4bOLC+/qcJB2rN5c0I5wafZygqoCObYOZskN3WZfnyJ3sIuNUqzGVj/5TZUrfrCCcKh0fKtAjU4UaEbcl8KJNkrrJXJqLbDkO0hIMc26RdcxjtAjE7MB81fpfj/tBBFIlgZe2f+7jDWzEdMvAFE/T4tNmm4LWSABq8pMaWrYL2lGOgZiaxHln0cv1NrO+V+Q+yMmtcvN4ERPLsE9VKY4hV6ez6uiOTC6V9w/2Gzv73fsrbnOzZ1dPsj88VSBSpiDS+XLmk5qi7WCOPzS7KlrL9lQNx16O9bysqfpb+K43ohO6sXxu9g212/5fxYVm2a7yullqfqIjvcs+/uot/c6ff44A/lIlfe+i+H0xAtExcquAYY6/aKXAMbuhOhsfItRW73MYfI18vgpxc+3S9xR4AcJwdIiHZVTw3uF0qfxvNqwv0F8wdr0uCjLvo1qW/3wnuW/bLT3e332r0H9iHLzqh5LTGSSirzXeEgy2PHph/vj3Uc3exDSBeviBaM7JHNkeonH9cEfli9V+0O7+zUgpsQUoHuhrgdheos0D5+KEE1PyIh0f/3kF7b+yN9GwM/0M1uRh16Vbhdlxe1n6m7TiGvrJU/HQbqRUO8p/eh951TPxpY+FPDz+/SI5v+oLiH/RR6r1Rbe8+n+sLJJSK2m53t/7SEsVLiJO+Igd4OO69ybs6xBCfSqZeD4u8zk0vHOP+h3Oy+ZPzzO9s45+d0X5pVPa0997DP8TKxuI8bpxWz0AubmOpCxwC1mW2X91S3mSNP40A7/ylxF1E/wZ0FSXFIvqaewAAAABJRU5ErkJggg==

Ideally the path of the image is displayed, but what is this? some new HTML5 way of doing things in base64??

2 Answers 2

11

No -- it is an old and known way -- just relatively rarely used.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_URI_scheme

The image is part of the page itself and is transmitted on every page view and therefore cannot be cached by browser which means you spending more traffic. The benefit compared to standalone image is that you have less requests sent to a server.

Search for data uri scheme and you will see plenty of examples how to use, when to use and what pros & cons are.

4

Here is how the webmaster actually had done it.

When user uploaded the image, it did a base64_encode(image) stored it in the database with key value 1234

then, what you see is:

header('application-type : image/png')

decoded - base64_encode(image)

encoding anything into base64 converts it into a text which can be store in database easily once u decode it, you just need to specify header information of that file.

Done!

and no, its not HTML5, infact, it has NOTHING TO DO with what HTML it is using. It will work even on IE7 :)

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