How to save an image from SQL Server to a file using SQL [closed]

Answer 1

This article explains how you can use SQL Server's OLE automation stored procs (which allow you to create and use COM-based objects through T-SQL) to create a file.

Answer 2

I have tried using the @attach_query_result_as_file option but there is no way to have that query written as binary that I can get to work. So the next option would be to use bcp to a temp file and then attach the file.

DECLARE @sql VARCHAR(1000)

SET @sql = 'BCP "SELECT ImageColumn FROM YourTable where id = 1 " QUERYOUT C:\TEMP\MyLogo.gif -T -fC:\TEMP\bcpFormat.fmt -S ' + @@SERVERNAME
EXEC master.dbo.xp_CmdShell @sql

exec msdb.dbo.sp_send_dbmail
@profile_name = 'MyProfile',
@recipients = 'bob@hotmail.com',
@subject = 'test as image',
@body=N'<p>Image Test</p><img src="MyLogo.gif" /><p>See image there?</p>', 
@file_attachments = 'C:\TEMP\MyLogo.gif',
@body_format = 'HTML';

The bcpFormat.fmt would look like this:

8.0
1
1 SQLIMAGE 0 0 "" 1 Image ""

That will attach the image from your database to the email as a file. It still won't show it "inline" as that would take some more work to mime encode the image into the body of the email and reference it from your html. You would also need to generate some unique names for your files and cleanup so that multiple processes won't step on each other.

Answer 3

I think madC's comment is the best solution. You can also try using something like this :

INSERT INTO OPENROWSET ( 'BULK', '', BULK_BLOB ) ...

but on my side it required the following additional steps:

sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1
reconfigure with override
sp_configure 'Ad Hoc Distributed Queries', 1 
reconfigure with override

And after this the result of the INSERT was:

Msg 7302, Level 16, State 1, Line 1
Cannot create an instance of OLE DB provider "BULK" for linked server "(null)".

Maybe you will be able to find the idea how to make it work.

Answer 4

Is an SQL CLR (.NET) stored procedure a possiblity? That would have no problem saving data from a blob field to a temporary file on disk.