C# Insert binary files into SQL-Server table

Introduction

Learn how to store any binary or non-binary file into a SQL-Server database table using C# and SqlClient classes which is one option while the other option is using FILESTREAM. Which one to use can be a team decision, a DBA decision or dependent on amount and sizes of files. Here the focus will be on storing files in a column within a table.

Porting from old article

This article is a port from Microsoft TechNet which Karen wrote November 27 2019. Microsoft TechNet is going away thus the reason for this article.

Original code was written in 4.5 and 4.7 framework which still exist, and two new projects have been added using NET9. To write the NET8 versions, new projects were created, old framework code added to the new class project then refactored the code. A console project was added to insert and read back a image file. It does not matter the file type, if a image works so will other file types.

Author’s opinion, it depends on how many files will be stored along with file sizes and usage of images. For example, there is a table that represents categories for products with ten rows, one image per row, this is a decent reason for storing images in a database table. Before storing files in a database table read the Stackoverflow post and decide which is best, file system or database storage.

Code presented below

None of the NET9 code is shown, once the repository is clone examine the code. NET8 code is basically the same as the framework code but better. For example cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue has been replaced with cmd.Parameters.Add and more refinements.

Source code

Clone the following GitHub repository. For the NET8 core projects, this requires that NET9 is installed and using Microsoft Visual Studio 2022.

Storing files

Should files be stored in a database or the file system?

For a great discussion, read the following Stackoverflow post.

Column type used for storing files

The column type which will be used is varbinary(MAX) which is best suited for this type of operation.

Storing a file

Create a class which has a method which accepts the path and filename, the second parameter is either the filename from the first parameter or perhaps a new filename.

public bool InsertFileSimple(string FilePath, string FileName, ref int NewIdentifier)

Step 1

Read the file content into a byte array which will be used as a value for a command object parameter.

byte[] fileByes;
 
using (var stream = new FileStream(FilePath, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
{
    using (var reader = new BinaryReader(stream))
    {
        fileByes = reader.ReadBytes((int)stream.Length);
    }
}

Step 2

Create a connection and command object, set the command text and parameters. The SQL INSERT statement differs from conventional SQL in that one parameter is passing a byte array to the query rather than string, numeric, date etc.

using (var cn = new SqlConnection() { ConnectionString = Default.ConnectionString })
{
    const string statement = "INSERT INTO Table1 (FileContents,FileName) VALUES (@FileContents,@FileName);" +
                             "SELECT CAST(scope_identity() AS int);";
 
    using (var cmd = new SqlCommand() { Connection = cn, CommandText = statement })
    {
        cmd.Parameters.Add("@FileContents",
            SqlDbType.VarBinary, fileByes.Length).Value = fileByes;
 
        cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@FileName", FileName);
 
        try
        {
            cn.Open();
 
            NewIdentifier = Convert.ToInt32(cmd.ExecuteScalar());
            return true;
 
        }
        catch (Exception ex)
        {
            ExceptionMessage = ex.Message;
            return false;
        }
    }
}

Note that the SQL is actually two statements separated by a semi-colon. The second query is responsible for returning the new primary key for the newly added record.

Step 3

This is actually the start, calling the method above and returning from the method call.

Since InsertFileSimple returns a boolean this indicates success or failure. On success (returning true) identifier variable now contains the new primary key while if the operation failed identifier variable is invalid, check ExceptionMessage property for what happened.

var ops = new DataOperations();
var identifier = 0;
var fileName = Path.Combine(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.BaseDirectory, "Dogma1.html");
 
if (ops.InsertFileSimple(fileName, "Dogma1.html", ref identifier))
{
    MessageBox.Show($"Id is {identifier}");
}
else
{
    MessageBox.Show($"Failed: {ops.ExceptionMessage}");
}

Reading and writing to disk

To retrieve a file a SQL SELECT is used passing the primary key. The critical code is shown below, broken out from the method to return bytes and write to disk.

• Get the ordinal index for the column containing byte array to the stored content.
• The blob variable sets up the line of code below to perform the actual read which populates the variable block with the data read via reader.GetBytes.
• Uses a FileStream to write the byte array to a file.

var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader();
 
if (reader.HasRows)
{
    reader.Read();
 
    // the blob column
    var fieldOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("FileContents");
 
    var blob = new byte[(reader.GetBytes(
        fieldOrdinal, 0,
        null, 0,
        int.MaxValue))];
 
    reader.GetBytes(fieldOrdinal, 0, blob, 0, blob.Length);
 
    using (var fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write))
        fs.Write(blob, 0, blob.Length);
 
}

Entire method to read from a table and write to a physical file. FileContents is the varbinary column for storing files.

public bool ReadFileFromDatabaseTableSimple(int Identifier, string fileName)
{
    using (var cn = new SqlConnection() { ConnectionString = Default.ConnectionString })
    {
        const string statement = "SELECT id, [FileContents], FileName FROM Table1  WHERE id = @id;";
 
        using (var cmd = new SqlCommand() { Connection = cn, CommandText = statement})
        {
            cmd.Parameters.AddWithValue("@id", Identifier);
 
            try
            {
                cn.Open();
 
            var reader = cmd.ExecuteReader();
 
            if (reader.HasRows)
            {
                reader.Read();
 
                // the blob column
                var fieldOrdinal = reader.GetOrdinal("FileContents");
 
                var blob = new byte[(reader.GetBytes(
                    fieldOrdinal, 0,
                    null, 0,
                    int.MaxValue))];
 
                reader.GetBytes(fieldOrdinal, 0, blob, 0, blob.Length);
 
                using (var fs = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Create, FileAccess.Write))
                    fs.Write(blob, 0, blob.Length);
 
            }
 
                return true;
 
            }
 
            catch (Exception ex)
            {
                ExceptionMessage = ex.Message;
                return false;
            }
        }
    }
}

Storing more than a single file

Although the code for storing a single file will work for storing many files code can get overly messy fast and error prone.

:stop_sign: The code sample presented uses inline methods which is not supported in some of the lower .NET Frameworks, if this is the case then extract the inline method to a private method in the same class.

The suggested pattern:

• Wrap the executing code to perform the INSERT with a connection and command.
• Command parameters will be created once and used later. In the single file insert parameters were created with AddWithValue which if used here would mean on each iteration the parameter collection would need to be cleared and then add parameters back in unlike the code below, create each parameter once.

To monitor progress in real time a delegate is used which the caller subscribes too, in this case a ListBox is populated in each iteration performing inserts.

Code behind called in this case from a button click event.

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.IO;
using static MultipleUpload.Properties.Settings;
 
namespace MultipleUpload
{
    public class DataOperations
    {
        public delegate void FileHandler(object sender, InsertFileArgs myArgs);
        public event FileHandler OnLineHandler;
 
        public string ExceptionMessage { get; set; }
 
        /// <summary>
        /// Takes a list of files and inserts them into a table with a delegate
        /// which provides the caller information to see what's going on in real time.
        /// </summary>
        /// <param name="files">List of files including their path</param>
        /// <returns>Success or failure</returns>
        public bool InsertFiles(List<string> files)
        {
            /*
             * in line method to get a file byte array suitable for inserting
             * a new record into a table.
             */
            byte[] GetFileBytes(string fileName)
            {
                byte[] fileByes;
 
                using (var stream = new FileStream(fileName, FileMode.Open, FileAccess.Read))
                {
                    using (var reader = new BinaryReader(stream))
                    {
                        fileByes = reader.ReadBytes((int)stream.Length);
                    }
                }
 
                return fileByes;
            }
 
            const string statement = "INSERT INTO Table1 (FileContents,