Exporting an image column to a pdf file in sql server?

Question

I am trying to export a column with \'image\' datatype from SQL server. I used the code shown below. The code runs successfully but i don\'t see the output file. Please let

Answer 1

I am answering this question as i found out a way to do it faster.

Using the bcp (bulk copy program) utility from the command line preserves the native file format and is very fast. The output files can be written to a local directory as well. Also, the file formats can be customized if needed.

Edit: Adding a more detailed version of the answer with the code i used.

1) Set the required permissions to execute xp_cmdshell.

EXEC sp_configure 'show advanced options', 1;  
GO  
RECONFIGURE;  
GO
EXEC sp_configure 'xp_cmdshell',1  
GO  
RECONFIGURE;  
GO

2) Export the format file for the table using bcp

bcp schemaname.tablename format nul -T -n -f format_file_tablename.fmt

Replace -T with -S servername -d databasename -U username -P password if you don't connect to the database using integrated security.

3) After a successful export of the format file, edit it to remove all the other columns except the image or varbinary column.

The format file looked like this initially.

11.0
17
1       SQLNCHAR            2       200     ""   1     Name                                 SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
2       SQLNCHAR            2       1000    ""   2     Description                          SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
3       SQLUNIQUEID         1       16      ""   3     GUID                                 ""
4       SQLBIT              1       1       ""   4     Enabled                              ""
5       SQLNCHAR            2       600     ""   5     ClassType                            SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
6       SQLINT              0       4       ""   6     PartitionID                          ""
7       SQLBIT              1       1       ""   7     Protected                            ""
8       SQLDATETIME         1       8       ""   8     LastModifiedTime                     ""
9       SQLINT              0       4       ""   9     LastModifiedByID                     ""
10      SQLINT              0       4       ""   10    ImageType                            ""
11      SQLBIT              1       1       ""   11    Template                             ""
12      SQLINT              0       4       ""   12    ObjectID                             ""
13      SQLBINARY           8       0       ""   13    Image     --column of interest                           ""
14      SQLINT              0       4       ""   14    ParentId                             ""
15      SQLNCHAR            2       600     ""   15    ParentClassType                      SQL_Latin1_General_CP1_CI_AS
16      SQLBIT              1       1       ""   16    IsPrimary                            ""
17      SQLDATETIME         1       8       ""   17    ImageCaptureDate                     ""

I edited the file like below.

11.0
1
1      SQLBINARY           0       0       ""   1    Image                                ""

4) Then i had to loop through the rows in the table to extract image column in each row as a file. I used a temp table for this purpose.

IF OBJECT_ID('dbo.tmp_for_picture', 'U') IS NOT NULL
DROP TABLE tmp_for_picture
GO
select 
 row_number() over(order by parentid) as rownum 
,i.image as image_column
,i.parentid
,replace(p.name,',','') as picture_file_name
,i.name
into tmp_for_picture
from Images i 
join personnel p on p.ObjectID = i.ParentId
GO
declare @cnt int
declare @i int 
declare @filename varchar(512)
declare @extension varchar(20)
declare @sql varchar(4000)
set @cnt = (select count(*) from Images i join personnel p on p.ObjectID = i.ParentId)
set @i = 1
set @extension = '.jpeg' --or extract the extension from a column in the table if available

while @i <= @cnt 
begin
--print @i
set @filename = (select picture_file_name from tmp_for_picture where rownum = @i)
set @sql = 'bcp "select image_column from tmp_for_picture where rownum = '+str(@i)+'" queryout "F:\pictures\'+@filename+@extension+'" -f formatfile.fmt -S servername -d databasename -T'
--print @sql
exec xp_cmdshell @sql
set @i = @i+1
end
GO

The steps described above, can be used to extract any type of image/varbinary files (stored as pdf,docx etc.) from the database.