convert system.data.linq.binary to byte[]

Question

I am storing bytes in a database table. When I retrieve it with Linq 2 sql I get the return type in system.data.linq.Binary.

I am not able to convert th

Answer 1

(byte[])linqBinaryField.ToArray()

Answer 2

You can try MemoryStream. I wrote a function in my project to convert an image to byte array like the following:

    public static byte[] Image2ByteArr(string filename)
    {            
        Bitmap bm = new Bitmap(getPath(filename));
        MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();
        bm.Save(ms, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        return ms.ToArray();
    }

Hope that helpful for you!

Answer 3

Have you tried calling ToArray() on i.data?

var img = from i in db.images
      where i.id == key
      select i.data.ToArray();

System.Data.Linq.Binary has a ToArray method just for that purpose.

Answer 4

Probably its too late by now but may help others :)

//testTable PK:ID, binaryData :binary(32)

public void insertDummyData()
{
    DBML.testTable v = new DBML.testTable ();
    v.ID = 1;

    System.Text.UTF8Encoding encoding = new System.Text.UTF8Encoding();
    v.binaryData = new System.Data.Linq.Binary(encoding.GetBytes("11111111000000001111111100000000"));                                                                    

    db.testTable.InsertOnSubmit(v);
    db.SubmitChanges();
}

Or else, Click on the Binary field from .dbml file, open properties and then change the field type from Binary to byte[] as found here