Here is an old reply of mine to a similar question on the old comp.databases.sybase usenet newsgroup. The "logo1.gif" file it references no longer exists.
-bret
You are probably best off with a dedicated client program.
Using plain TSQL, you have to use an ascii-encoded
binary representation of the file, as used in $SYBASE/ASE-*/scripts/installpix2.
Have a look at the getsend.c sample program. It comes
with the Open Client package and can be found in $SYBASE/OCS-15_0/sample/ctlibrary
The comments in the READ.ME file indicate that it demonstrates
text but can easily be modified to work with image.
With an Open Client program, I believe you can open an image file (or use
copy and paste mechanisms), read the contents into a buffer, and pass the
buffer directly to WRITETEXT.
However, if you don't want to go to the effort of writing an Open Client
program, here is how to do it using a few utility programs and TSQL.
While the exact method used to create the installpix2 script seems to have
been lost to history, it must have been something like the following example.
Start with an image. For this example, I used the Sybase logo in the
upper right-hand corner of http://www.sybase.com (the image itself is
http://www.sybase.com/images/logo1.gif). Make a local copy of this
picture and name it "logo1.gif".
To include the image in a TSQL script, we need to code it in printable
ascii characters, such as a bin2hex routine. This could be written in any
language (PERL, c, pascal, etc). A simple example is [don't bother to compile
it, just understand what it is doing]:
bin2hex.c
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include "stdio.h"
main()
{
int c;
int linefeed;
linefeed = 0;
while (( c = getchar()) != EOF)
{
printf("%x",c/16);
printf("%x",c%16);
linefeed++;
if (linefeed == 20)
{
/* print a continuation marker and start a new line */
printf("\\\n");
linefeed = 0;
}
}
}
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
We need a place to put the image, so log into sql server and create a table.
For the purposes of this example, run the following script:
use tempdb
go
create table my_pictures (x numeric(8,0) identity, pic image null)
go
Note that you will probably want much more information in a real table, such as
fields describing the image type (GIF, TIFF, Pict, etc.), size, vertical and
horizontal dimensions, name, etc.
I've modified the bin2hex to provide a TSQL wrapper, so for this example, compile
the following "bin2sql.c" program and name the executable "bin2sql". There is
lots of room for improvement here in terms of passing parameters such as the file
name (for storage in a table field) and inserting metadata into a table, but I leave
that for you to develop.
bin2sql.c
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include "stdio.h"
main()
{
int c;
int linefeed;
linefeed = 0;
printf("insert tempdb..pict2 values (0x00) \n");
printf("declare @val varbinary(16) \n");
printf("select @val = textptr(pic) from tempdb..pict2 \n");
printf("where x = @@identity \n");
printf("writetext tempdb..pict2.pic @val \n") ;
printf("0x");
while (( c = getchar()) != EOF)
{
printf("%x",c/16);
printf("%x",c%16);
linefeed++;
if (linefeed == 20)
{
/* print a continuation marker and start a new line */
printf("\\\n");
linefeed = 0;
}
}
printf("\ngo \n");
}
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now execute:
bin2sql < logo1.gif > logo1.sql
You should wind up with a file that looks like this (body has been snipped):
logo1.sql
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------
insert tempdb..pict2 values (0x00)
declare @val varbinary(16)
select @val = textptr(pic) from tempdb..pict2
where x = @@identity
writetext tempdb..pict2.pic @val
0x47494638396196002b00f70000fffffff7f7f7ef\
efefe7e7e7f7f7ffefeff7e7e7efdedee7d6d6de\
ceced6c6c6cededeefd6d6e7cecedec6c6d6bdbd\
[snip]
0216bc80ca4f2e41833c3667379319b8340ab4a0\
074de8421bfad0886e4d4000003b
go
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Run this script through isql:
$SYBASE/bin/isql -Usa -Pxxxxxx -i logo1.sql
(1 row affected)
(1 row affected)
Return parameters:
txts
------------------
0x000100000000138a
If you log into SQL Server, you should see that tempdb..pict2 now contains a row of data,
with the identity column (x) containing the value "1".
Now lets pull the image back out.
$SYBASE/bin/isql -Usa -Pxxxxxx -o logo1.hex << EOF
set nocount on
go
select pic from tempdb..pict2 where x = 1
go
EOF
The file logo1.hex will look something like this:
logo1.hex:
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
pic
------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
----------------------------------------
0x4d4d002a00000728800020503824160d0784426150b864361d0f8844625138a4562d1
78c466351
b8e4763d1f904864523924964d190080a552b01004070401ca6552e93cd66d08008100b
3b9d8180e
[snip]
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000
000000000000000000000000000000
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Now we need to strip off the header information (note that you could have used the -b flag
for isql, if the isql version was 11.1 or higher) and convert the hex encoded data back to
a binary file. For that, we need another program (this one strips the header by disposing
characters until it finds an "x", which in this simple example occurs only in that leading
"0x" hexadecimal data indicator.):
hex2bin.c:
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
#include "stdio.h"
main()
{
int c;
int highbits;
int c_high;
int c_low;
highbits = 1; /* 1 if we are currently reading the high bits of the character */
/* skip all headers, etc, until character after leading "0x" */
while ((( c = getchar()) != EOF) && (c != 'x')) ;
/* convert hex representation of data to binary */
while (( c = getchar()) != EOF)
{
if ((c >= '0') && (c <= '9'))
{
if (highbits)
{
c_high = (c - '0');
}
else
{
c_low = (c - '0');
}
}
if ((c >= 'A') && (c <= 'F'))
{
if (highbits)
{
c_high = (c - 'A');
}
else
{
c_low = (c - 'A');
}
}
if ((c >= 'a') && (c <= 'f'))
{
if (highbits)
{
c_high = ((c - 'a') +10);
}
else
{
c_low = ((c - 'a') +10 );
}
}
if ((highbits==0) && isxdigit(c))
{
printf("%c",((c_high*16)+c_low));
highbits = 1;
}
else
{
if (isxdigit(c)) highbits = 0;
}
}
}
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Run hex2bin on logo1.hex, we should get our original image back.
hex2bin < logo1.hex > retreived_logo.gif
diff should reveal no difference between the two, and you should be able to view
retrieved_logo.gif with your favorite gif-format image viewer.
Admittedly, this is a very crude example, but I trust it gives you a
starting point..