I've used base64_encode and base64_decode for file attachment both in MySQL (using a BLOB field) and MSSQL (using a TEXT field). For MSSQL remember to set in PHP.INI file both mssql.textsize and mssql.textlimit to 2147483647.
Here's the code:
######### MSSQL(mssql_)/MySQL(mysql_) file attach
$val=$HTTP_POST_FILES['lob_upload']['tmp_name'];
$valn=$HTTP_POST_FILES['lob_upload']['name'];
$valt=$HTTP_POST_FILES['lob_upload']['type'];
$data=base64_encode(addslashes(fread(fopen($val, "r"), filesize($val))));
mssql_connect("srv","usr","pass") or die ("");
mssql_select_db("db") or die ("");
$query = "UPDATE $table SET $field='$data', $fieldname='$valn', $fieldtype='$valt' WHERE DocID='$DocID'";
$result = mssql_query($query) or die(mssql_error());
mssql_close();
######### MSSQL(mssql_)/MySQL(mysql_) open file attached
mssql_connect("srv","usr","pass") or die ("");
mssql_select_db("db") or die ("");
$query = "SELECT $field,$fieldtype FROM $table WHERE DocID='$DocID'";
$result = mssql_query($query) or die(mssql_error());
$row = mssql_fetch_array($result);
header("Content-type: $row[1]");
echo stripslashes(base64_decode($row[0]));
This strategy is good for Microsoft Word, Acrobat PDF, JPG image and so on (even zipped files!!!)
