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Recently I had to load in images from database references that were pointing to a .net serverside script. This path ended with something like ImageHandler.ashx?id=164
When I tried to load this in with my standard ImageLoader it didn’t work because it was coming back as binary and I was getting a reference error about the URL type not being found. I think it was
Error #2044: Unhandled IOErrorEvent:. text=Error #2124: Loaded file is an unknown type.
The way to get around this is a little strange and involves 2 loading processes. The first one loads in the data but set as

_loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;

Then once this has loaded we ‘load’ the ByteArray that is returned into a loader and proceed as normal:

public function loadBinaryJPG(_path:String):void
{
	_loader = new URLLoader();
	_loader.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, _onLoadInit);
        // set the dataFormat to binary
	_loader.dataFormat = URLLoaderDataFormat.BINARY;
	_loader.load(new URLRequest(_path));
}

private function _onLoadInit(e:Event):void
{
	_loader.removeEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, _onLoadInit);
        // once the binary data has loaded, check that there
        // is data there and load that into a Loader
	var _l2:Loader = new Loader();
	_l2.contentLoaderInfo.addEventListener(Event.COMPLETE, _blComp);

	var _byteArr:ByteArray = new ByteArray();
	_byteArr = _loader.data;
	// check that data was returned
	if(_byteArr.length != 0)
	{
		_l2.loadBytes(_loader.data);
	} else {
		// generate error message
	}
}

private function _blComp(e:Event):void
{
        // deal with binary data that is in the loader (e.target)
	_bmdata = new BitmapData(114, 87, false, 0xFFFFFF);
	_bmdata = (e.target.content).bitmapData;

	_bm = new Bitmap(_bmdata, "auto", true);
	// deal with loaded Bitmap
}