VB.NET Tutorial - INSERT Images Into a SQL Server Database (SHORT)

This is the short, "Bare Bones" version of my VB.NET tutorial showing you how to insert images into a Microsoft SQL Server Database and then retrieve them.
NOTE: A link to the full version of the tutorial will be posted below.
Tutorial Source Code:
www.dropbox.co...
SQLControl Class (.txt):
www.dropbox.co...
FULL VERSION TUTORIAL:
• VB.NET SQL Tutorial - ...
Thank you for supporting VBToolBox! :-D

[@kenclemerbaltar532]

nice tutorial very handy for my projecf

[@clw7777]

Your videos have been a lifesaver. I've figured out how to modify this to get a pdf saved to a database via a filestream instead of a memorystream, but i'm having trouble getting the image back OUT of the database to display. for example, i'm saving vehicles and want to be able to click a button and display the appropriate document, whether it's the title, or the insurance card etc. I'm open to either a list view or a datagridview to accomplish the initial list, I'm not picky, and then display the file in either an axAcro box or even a web browser. Help! I've been searching the web for 2 weeks and can't seem to figure out how to cobble together what i find out there, with your elegant base i've used. (dbcontrol) Thanks!

[@nagarajhp9088]

Can you please provide a tutorial for inserting, modify and deleting data into sql using stored procedures

[@VBToolbox]

Hi, Nagaraj! I'm not sure if you already saw it, but I just recently added a video for this topic. 🙂

[@mengmeng243]

Hi Sir, I hope you could share us how to insert image on access database as well

[@VBToolbox]

While this can certainly be done using BLOBs (binary large object data) in Access, I tend to strongly recommend against the practice unless absolutely necessary. It's generally best to store image data in a directory by ID, then store the pointer or path as a string in your database. The reasoning is that image data is very large and will rapidly inflate your table size.

[@mengmeng243]

@@VBToolbox thank you for the response this helps a lot Im a novice in programming and yes I just noticed when I was updating the tables its size are getting bigger but if I use the directory instead of the binary data, what should I do to prevent unable to access the pictures when I install the program on other computer?

[@VBToolbox]

​@@mengmeng243 Do you mean that you want to block access to the images so the user cannot open the folder, or do you simply want to package them with your project so they'll be available? You can bundle files and folders with your application installer or just zip them up together, if you just want to be sure the application has the images when you install. If you want to limit folder access so users can't access but your application can, you could do that with folder permissions as an administrator on a network or domain. If you want a shared image directory that all installations can access simultaneously with the same images, you can use a network file share. It is still very possible to insert them into you Access database, though, if that's your preferred approach. Unfortunately, I don't have a tutorial or source code available for this, but it might be a fun project to refresh my memory. 🙂

[@mengmeng243]

@@VBToolbox Oh I can actually bundle the files and folder with the app?? That's awesome! I thought I have to add it on my app folder manually everytime I install it 😅 clearly I still have lots to learn. Thank you so much for the response, and no worries I just joined stack overflow yesterday, people there are also very helpful I can definitely find some instructions on how to do it. Again thank you so much! ☺️

[@avocado5739]

Hi, I hav an excel file which has the filename of images and i have loaded it into the sql server 2012 and i have images in a folder, all i want to do is import all the images from the folder at once to the database using vb.net and want to load them in the DataGridView in vb.net and after that i want to have a preview of that image in picture box, can u kindly help me out to do this ??

[@jewelpotpot9755]

hi sir i would like to request on how can u show the images from the access database to the datagrid from ur tutorials of access database i love ur tutorial helped me a lot in my case study i sure do appreciate u teachings

[@VBToolbox]

This may be difficult to explain here, but one way I know of is to store the image data (bytes) to an OLE type column in Access. This type can be automatically loaded by the DataGridView. You'll need to import the System.IO namespace into your form to work with Streams. *Example:* [Above your Form Class] Imports System.IO [Inside your Form Class] Private Sub UploadImage(Path As String) ' EXIT IF IMAGE NOT SELECTED If String.IsNullOrEmpty(Path) Then Exit Sub ' GET IMAGE DATA VIA MEMORY STREAM Dim img As Image = Image.FromFile(Path) Dim ms As New MemoryStream() img.Save(ms, img.RawFormat) Dim buffer As Byte() = ms.GetBuffer() ' ADD SQL PARAMETERS Access.AddParam("@user", txtUser.Text) Access.AddParam("@image", buffer) ' RUN INSERT COMMAND Access.ExecQuery("INSERT INTO images (username,picture) " & _ "VALUES (@user,@image) ") ' REPORT ERRORS If Access.HasException(True) Then Exit Sub MsgBox("Image added successfully.") LoadGrid() End Sub Private Sub LoadGrid() Access.ExecQuery("SELECT id,username,picture FROM images;") If Access.HasException(True) Then Exit Sub dgvImages.DataSource = Access.DBDT ' SCALE IMAGE TO FIT COLUMN For Each r As DataGridViewRow In dgvImages.Rows r.Height = 100 Next For Each c As DataGridViewColumn In dgvImages.Columns If c.GetType().Name = "DataGridViewImageColumn" Then TryCast(c, DataGridViewImageColumn).ImageLayout = DataGridViewImageCellLayout.Stretch c.Width = 140 End If Next End Sub UploadImage() will store the image to the database, and LoadGrid() will display the image in the datagridview. I hope that helps. Sorry it's complicated.

[@hangchi7641]

Aaaaaaaaaahhhhh .

[@hangchi7641]

Poor dog I liked my own commet how sad.