How can I save a file in SQL Server 2008 database with Entity Framework?
I want to use FileStream in SQL Server 2008.
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2 Answers
I don't see why this wouldn't work - filestream columns are just exposed as varbinary(MAX) so you should be able to set the column using Entity Framework:
Sample from here:
Files newFile = new Files();
newFile.FileID = Guid.NewGuid();
newFile.FileContents = System.IO.File.ReadAllBytes("TextFile1.txt");
ctx.AddObject("Files", newFile);
ctx.SaveChanges();
3 Comments
Simon Mourier
But this will allocate the whole file in memory, right? Is there any other reasonable way? After all, that's the whole purpose of FILESTREAM.
BrokenGlass
good point Simon - the column will be treated just like any other
varbinary(MAX) column, so this approach while it works, won't be very efficient or even usable for very large files.
Amicable
What I do to bypass that performance limitation is store the files in the azure blob storage then save a reference to the blob in the database.
Entity framework doesn't have support for SQL server specific features like filestream. You can't do it with EF you must fall back to ADO.NET.
Edit:
Undeleting my answer because I just tested how EF handles FILESTREAM columns. EF indeed works with FILESTREAM column so my answer is not fully correct and @BrokenGlass provided the solution. The problem is that EF ignores FILESTREAM keyword and doesn't really use streaming when working with FILESTREAM column. That column is handled as any other binary column.
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