so imagine I perform an ajax request that sends a name of a image file to my PHP server and the server is NOT ALLOWED to send a link to the file ... instead it will send the contents of the file through PHP's readfile(); function. when this data is returned, how should JavaScript set an img element's src attribute e.g
myXMLHttpRequest.onload=function(){
imgElement.src= /*some way to work with myXMLHttpResponse.reponseText*/;
}
OK, the main point here is to set the src from a string where that string is binary content of an image file.
Yes, this is possible, and regularly done.
Simply use the URL of your PHP script. Don't bother with XHR.
<img src="your-image-script.php" />