The Art of SQL Server FILESTREAM - Red Gate Software

Chapter 5: FILESTREAM with ASP.NET and SilverlightLab 6: Creating a Web Handler to Serve Imagesfrom a FILESTREAM DatabaseIn Lab 4, we saw how to upload files into the FILESTREAM column of a SQL Serverdatabase from a web page. In this lab, we will see how to serve those files back to theclient applications, upon request.We will create a web page to retrieve images from the database and send them to theclient browser. A web page is not the best way to implement such a handler, but at thisstage we want to minimize complexity, so that we can focus on FILESTREAM and noton ASP.NET features. In a later lab, we will develop a similar solution using a generichandler, which is a much better approach.To do this, we will:• create a stored procedure to retrieve the FILESTREAM information• create the web page that serves item images• run and test the application.Creating a stored procedure to retrieveFILESTREAM dataStart by creating a stored procedure that will retrieve the logical path name of theFILESTREAM value, and the FILESTREAM transaction context. This stored procedure,shown in Listing 5-9, will take an item number as input parameter and will return theFILESTREAM information.189