Obtaining BLOB Values from a Database
' Assumes that connection is a valid SqlConnection object.
Dim command As SqlCommand = New SqlCommand( _
"SELECT pub_id, logo FROM pub_info", connection)
' Writes the BLOB to a file (*.bmp).
Dim stream As FileStream
' Streams the binary data to the FileStream object.
Dim writer As BinaryWriter
' The size of the BLOB buffer.
Dim bufferSize As Integer = 100
' The BLOB byte() buffer to be filled by GetBytes.
Dim outByte(bufferSize - 1) As Byte
' The bytes returned from GetBytes.
Dim retval As Long
' The starting position in the BLOB output.
Dim startIndex As Long = 0
' The publisher id to use in the file name.
Dim pubID As String = ""
' Open the connection and read data into the DataReader.
connection.Open()
Dim reader As SqlDataReader = command.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.SequentialAccess)
Do While reader.Read()
' Get the publisher id, which must occur before getting the logo.
pubID = reader.GetString(0)
' Create a file to hold the output.
stream = New FileStream( _
"logo" & pubID & ".bmp", FileMode.OpenOrCreate, FileAccess.Write)
writer = New BinaryWriter(stream)
' Reset the starting byte for a new BLOB.
startIndex = 0
' Read bytes into outByte() and retain the number of bytes returned.
retval = reader.GetBytes(1, startIndex, outByte, 0, bufferSize)
' Continue while there are bytes beyond the size of the buffer.
Do While retval = bufferSize
writer.Write(outByte)
writer.Flush()
' Reposition start index to end of the last buffer and fill buffer.
startIndex += bufferSize
retval = reader.GetBytes(1, startIndex, outByte, 0, bufferSize)
Loop
' Write the remaining buffer.
writer.Write(outByte, 0 , retval - 1)
writer.Flush()
' Close the output file.
writer.Close()
stream.Close()
Loop
' Close the reader and the connection.
reader.Close()
connection.Close()
