byte array to pdf

Question

I am trying to convert content of a file stored in a sql column to a pdf.

I use the following piece of code:

byte[] bytes; BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter(); MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream(); bf.Serialize(ms, fileContent); bytes = ms.ToArray(); System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes("hello.pdf", bytes); 

The pdf generated is corrupt in the sense that when I open the pdf in notepad++, I see some junk header (which is same irrespective of the fileContent). The junk header is NUL SOH NUL NUL NUL ....

Answer 1

You shouldn't be using the BinaryFormatter for this - that's for serializing .Net types to a binary file so they can be read back again as .Net types.

If it's stored in the database, hopefully, as a varbinary - then all you need to do is get the byte array from that (that will depend on your data access technology - EF and Linq to Sql, for example, will create a mapping that makes it trivial to get a byte array) and then write it to the file as you do in your last line of code.

With any luck - I'm hoping that fileContent here is the byte array? In which case you can just do

System.IO.File.WriteAllBytes("hello.pdf", fileContent);