Java, Remove OLE headers from images stored as OLE Objects in access database

If you are using Java to access a MS Access database, and need to retrieve images stored in fields of type OLE Object, then this post can help you. When you insert images into OLE Object fields directly using the MS Access client, and you need to retrieve this image later to use in a desktop application or a web site, you will have a problem. The problem, is that the MS Access insert an OLE Header in the image file registered in database. So you will need to remove the OLE Header to use the image out of the Ms Access. The code below acomplishes this task.

This post is based on:
http://blogs.msdn.com/b/pranab/archive/2008/07/15/removing-ole-header-from-images-stored-in-ms-access-db-as-ole-object.aspx

I just ported the code to Java language.

The code:

import java.io.ByteArrayInputStream;
import java.io.ByteArrayOutputStream;
import java.io.IOException;
import java.io.InputStream;
import java.util.HashMap;
import java.util.Map;

/**
 * Class to remove OLE Header from images stored as OLE Object
 * @author Douglas.Pasqua
 */
public class OLEImage {
    
    // Map to store the initial block of different images formats
    private Map<String, String> imagesBeginBlock;

    public OLEImage() {
        // inicialize
        imagesBeginBlock = new HashMap<String, String>();
        imagesBeginBlock.put("JPEG", "\u00FF\u00D8\u00FF"); // JPEG
        imagesBeginBlock.put("PNG", "\u0089PNG\r\n\u001a\n"); // PNG
        imagesBeginBlock.put("GIF", "GIF8"); // GIF
        imagesBeginBlock.put("TIFF", "II*\u0000"); // TIFF
        imagesBeginBlock.put("BMP", "BM"); // BMP
    }
   
    public byte[] getByteImgFromOLEInputStream(InputStream input, String imageFormat) {
        // get begin block identifier using imageFormat parameter
        String beginBlock = imagesBeginBlock.get(imageFormat);
        if(beginBlock == null) {
            throw new RuntimeException("Unsupported image format parameter value.");
        }
        
        try {
            byte[] b = toByteArray(input);
            String str = new String(b, "ISO-8859-1");
            
            // identifying the initial position of the image 
            int index = str.indexOf(beginBlock);
            if(index == -1) {
                throw new RuntimeException("Unable to determine image format.");
            }
            
            // removing the OLE Header 
            byte[] buffer = new byte[b.length - index];
            for(int i = 0, a = index; a < b.length; i++, a++) {
                buffer[i] = b[a];
            }
            return buffer;
            
        } catch(IOException e) {
            e.printStackTrace();
        } 
        
        return null;
    }
    
    /**
     * Convert InputStream object to array of bytes
     * @throws IOException 
     */
    public byte[] toByteArray(InputStream is) throws IOException {
        int len;
        int size = 1024;
        byte[] buf;

        if (is instanceof ByteArrayInputStream) {
            size = is.available();
            buf = new byte[size];
            len = is.read(buf, 0, size);
        } else {
            ByteArrayOutputStream bos = new ByteArrayOutputStream();
            buf = new byte[size];
            while ((len = is.read(buf, 0, size)) != -1) {
                bos.write(buf, 0, len);
            }
            buf = bos.toByteArray();
        }
        return buf;
    }
}

Examples of Use

Using with JPEG, PNG and GIF images on Desktop Applications

Java has native support for JPG, PNG and GIF images. So theses images format will work well with ImageIcon class:

// the class to remove de OLE Headers from OLE Objects
OLEImage oleImage = new OLEImage();

// get OLE object field from access database
// ...

// using with GIF format
InputStream input = rs.getBinaryStream("oleGIF");
byte buffer[] = oleImage.getByteImgFromOLEInputStream(input, "GIF");
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(buffer);

// using with JPEG format
InputStream input = rs.getBinaryStream("oleJPEG");
byte buffer[] = oleImage.getByteImgFromOLEInputStream(input, "JPEG");
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(buffer);

// using with PNG format
InputStream input = rs.getBinaryStream("olePNG");
byte buffer[] = oleImage.getByteImgFromOLEInputStream(input, "PNG");
ImageIcon icon = new ImageIcon(buffer);

Using TIFF and BMP Images on Desktop Applications

Our OLEImage class supports removing OLE Headers for TIFF and BMP images format too. But java doesn’t support these image formats natively. So, you can’t use these formats directly with ImageIcon.

If you are developing for desktop, you will need a alternative method to support these formats. The following links can help you with this task:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/593830/display-bmp-in-jlabel
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/1567398/showing-tiff-images-in-java
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9634472/how-to-set-tif-image-to-imageicon-in-java

Using all Image Formats on Web Applications

You are free to use any image format when working in web enviroment. (If you need to send these images from Access database to client browser).