Uploading Binary files or Images using LINQ to SQL

Today I received an email from a friend, asking how to save a binary file in to the database using LINQ to SQL.  This was the second time a person had asked me the same question, So I thought of having a blog entry about it.

Assume that we need to upload a file  and save its name, and the file in the database table. so lets see how we do it.

This is my Table

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Files2](
    [ID] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL,
    [FileName] [varchar](50) NOT NULL,
    [FileSource] [image] NOT NULL,
 )
GO

And The Following Stored Procedure is used to Insert the Value:

CREATE PROCEDURE [dbo].[ADDFILE]
(
    @FILENAME VARCHAR(50),
    @FILESOURCE image
)
AS
SET NOCOUNT ON

INSERT INTO Files([FileName],[FileSource])
VALUES(@FILENAME,@FILESOURCE)

And the following code is used to upload and save the file using web form with a text box for file name, and a file upload control to upload the file. on the click event of a button this code is called.

protected void Button1_Click(object sender, EventArgs e)
{

     if (FileUploader.HasFile && FileUploader.PostedFile.ContentLength > 0)
      {
          string filename = txtFileName.Text;
          //Read the file in to a byte Array.
          byte[] filebyte = FileUploader.FileBytes;

    System.Data.Linq.Binary fileBinary = new System.Data.Linq.Binary(filebyte);
          MyDataDataContext MyData = new MyDataDataContext();

          MyData.ADDFILE(filename, fileBinary);
          lblStatus.Text = "File Uploaded Successfully!";

        }
}

The Main thing to remember here is that we need to pass the FileUploader.FileBytes  to the constructor of System.Data.Linq.Binary.

To Learn more about LINQ to SQL Please visit Here.

 EDIT: Richie just showed another way to achieve this in his blog here.