Storing C# data structure into a SQL database

Question

I am new to the world of ASP.NET and SQL server, so please pardon my ignorance ...

If I have a data structure in C# (for e.g. let\'s just say, a vector that stores some

Answer 1

Here's another more general approach for generic lists. Note, the actual type stored in the list must also be serializable

using System.Runtime.Serialization.Formatters.Binary;
using System.IO;
using System.Data.SqlClient;
using System.Runtime.Serialization;

public byte[] SerializeList(List list)
{

    MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

    BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();

    bf.Serialize(ms, list);

    ms.Position = 0;

    byte[] serializedList = new byte[ms.Length];

    ms.Read(serializedList, 0, (int)ms.Length);

    ms.Close();

    return serializedList; 

} 

public List DeserializeList(byte[] data)
{
    try
    {
        MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

        ms.Write(data, 0, data.Length);

        ms.Position = 0;

        BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();

        List list = bf.Deserialize(ms) as List;

        return list;
    }
    catch (SerializationException ex)
    {
        // Handle deserialization problems here.
        Debug.WriteLine(ex.ToString());

        return null;
    }

}

Then in client code:

List stringList = new List() { "January", "February", "March" };

byte[] data = SerializeList(stringList);

One basic way of storing/retrieving this array of bytes could be to use simple SQLClient objects:

SqlParameter param = new SqlParameter("columnName", SqlDbType.Binary, data.Length);
param.Value = data; 

etc...