Best way to represent a color in a SQL Database?

Question

If I am using .Net and SQL Server 2008, what is the best way for me to store a color in the database, should I use ToString or convert it to an integer, or something else?

Answer 1

If you are storing the System.Drawing.Color, you need to store 4 bytes that represent the alpha and the 3 color channels. You can use a int data type.

If you are storing the System.Windows.Media.Color (from WPF), there are two possibilities depending on the usage you are using:

1. If you are only using ARGB colors, store as a int data type.
2. If you are using the ScRGB format, you need to store 4 float (single) values. I suggest two way of storing it:
1. A user-defined type with 4 float fields.
2. A varchar (length depend on the precision) and storing

   color.ToString(CultureInfo.InvariantCulture)