How can I store a string in a varbinary(max) column using c#

Question

How can I store a string in a varbinary(max) column?

I'm havig trouble in the convertion process i'm doing this:

    cmd.CommandText = "Insert into " + bdcombo.Text + ".dbo.nomes (id, nome) values (@id, @nome)";
    cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
    cmd.Connection = sqlcon;

    cmd.Parameters.Add("@nome", SqlDbType.VarBinary, 20).Value = Convert.ToSByte(textBox1.Text);

why do you want to store a string in a varbinary column?? Can't you store it in varchar one — Petar Ivanov
– Petar Ivanov, Commented Nov 24, 2011 at 10:31
@Oded I have a situation where I'm storing text documents of different formats (pdf, docx) in a varbinary(max) column for semantic search. Sometimes my document is just raw text, so this is the way to handle that. — Him
– Him, Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 14:47
@Scott - PDF is not text (nor is docx, which is, technically XML, which yes, technically is a textual format). — Oded
– Oded, Commented Mar 7, 2017 at 16:43

Marc Gravell · Accepted Answer · 2011-11-24 10:33:23Z

18

If you want to store a string, use [n]varchar(max).

If you must use varbinary(max), then to get the bytes you must use an encoding, for example:

byte[] theBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(theString);

and later:

string theString = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(theBytes);

(when reading)

answered Nov 24, 2011 at 10:33

Marc Gravell

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