How to insert and read a pdf file to Sql Server 2005 database using C#

Question

How to insert the pdf file into sqlserver 2005 and read the pdf file from sqlserver?

Answer 1

If you are interested into using database for file storage, look at this 4guysfromrolla article. It's web oriented, but there should be no problem finding what you need.

Answer 2

To put it into the database you must read it into a byte array. Either read it from the file system or use the AspNetFileUploadWebControl.FileBytes property. Create an insert stored procedure and add the byte array as the parameter for your DB column (the column must be of SQL data type "image").

To get it out of the database, use something like:

theRow = getDatarowFromDatabase();
aByteArrayOfTheFile = (byte[])theRow["theSqlImageColumnWithTheFileInIt"];

To allow the user to view or download it use my method SendAsFileToBrowser():

SendAsFileToBrowser(aByteArrayOfTheFile, "application/pdf", "downloaded.pdf");

The source code for the method (with overloads):

    // Stream a binary file to the user's web browser so they can open or save it.
    public static void SendAsFileToBrowser(byte[] File, string Type, string FileName)
    {
        string disp = "attachment";
        if (string.IsNullOrEmpty(FileName))
        {
            disp = "inline";
        }

        // set headers
        var r = HttpContext.Current.Response;
        r.ContentType = Type; // eg "image/Png"
        r.Clear();
        r.AddHeader("Content-Type", "binary/octet-stream");
        r.AddHeader("Content-Length", File.Length.ToString());
        r.AddHeader("Content-Disposition", disp + "; filename=" + FileName + "; size=" + File.Length.ToString());
        r.Flush();

        // write data to requesting browser
        r.BinaryWrite(File);
        r.Flush();
    }
    //overload
    public static void SendAsFileToBrowser(byte[] File, string Type)
    {
        SendAsFileToBrowser(File, Type, "");
    }
    // overload
    public static void SendAsFileToBrowser(System.IO.Stream File, string Type, string FileName)
    {
        byte[] buffer = new byte[File.Length];
        int length = (int)File.Length;
        File.Write(buffer, 0, length - 1);
        SendAsFileToBrowser(buffer, FileName, Type);
    }

Answer 3

Essentially, you are just talking about BLOB storage and retrieval (of image or varbinary(max) data). See this question: Streaming directly to a database