Question

I am trying to upload several db images onto the SQL Server 2008R2. I am using ASP.NET MVC 3 in C#. What is happening is that I getting the images displayed but the problem is that the second image is being displayed as twice. So it is duplicate. I am not sure why the first image is not being displayed.

My SubProductCategory4 Table has the following columns (for simplicity sake)…

Column Names: Image1 and Image2 has DataTypes varbinary(MAX), another column Name: ImageMimeType has DataTypes varchar(50).

My Controller has the following code for Create method…

[HttpPost]
    public ActionResult Create([Bind(Exclude = "SubProductCategoryFourID")] SubProductCategory4 Createsubcat4, IEnumerable<HttpPostedFileBase> files, FormCollection collection)
    {
        if (ModelState.IsValid)
        {
           foreach (string inputTagName in Request.Files)
           {

     if (Request.Files.Count > 0) // tried Files.Count > 1 did 
                                          // not solve the problem
                    {
                        Createsubcat4.Image1 = (new FileHandler()).uploadedFileToByteArray((HttpPostedFileBase)Request.Files[inputTagName]);
                        Createsubcat4.Image2 = (new FileHandler()).uploadedFileToByteArray((HttpPostedFileBase)Request.Files[inputTagName]);
                        // var fileName = Path.GetFileName(inputTagName);
                        //var path = Path.Combine(Server.MapPath("~/App_Data/uploads"), fileName);
                    }
                    // moved db.AddToSubProductCategory4(Createsubcat4);
                    // here  but did not solve the problem
           }
            db.AddToSubProductCategory4(Createsubcat4);
            db.SaveChanges();
            return RedirectToAction("/");
        }


   //someother code

        return View(Createsubcat4);
    } 

GetImage method…

public FileResult GetImage(int id)
    {
        const string alternativePicturePath = @"/Content/question_mark.jpg";
        MemoryStream stream;
        MemoryStream streaml;

        SubProductCategory4 z = db.SubProductCategory4.Where(k => k.SubProductCategoryFourID == id).FirstOrDefault();

        if ((z != null && z.Image1 != null) && (z != null && z.Image2 != null))
        {

                stream = new MemoryStream(z.Image1);
                streaml = new MemoryStream(z.Image2);
        }

        else
        {
              var path = Server.MapPath(alternativePicturePath);

             foreach (byte item in Request.Files)
              { 
                HttpPostedFileBase file = Request.Files[item];
                if (file.ContentLength == 0)
                {
                    continue;
                }
             }

            stream = new MemoryStream();
            var imagex = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(path);
            imagex.Save(stream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
            stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);

           /* streaml = new MemoryStream();
            var imagey = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(path);
            imagey.Save(streaml, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
            streaml.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);*/
        }

       return new FileStreamResult(stream,"image/jpg");

    }

FileHandler.cs

public class FileHandler
{
    public byte[] uploadedFileToByteArray(HttpPostedFileBase file)
    {
        int nFileLen = file.ContentLength;
        byte[] result = new byte[nFileLen];

        file.InputStream.Read(result, 0, nFileLen);

        return result;
    }

}

create.cshtml…

     @using (Html.BeginForm("Create", "ProductCategoryL4", "GetImage",  
     FormMethod.Post, new { enctype = "multipart/form-data" }))    
      //some code then...
     <div class="editor-field">
     @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Image1)
    <input type="file" id="fileUpload1" name="fileUpload1" size="23"/>
     @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Image1)
    </div>

     <div class="editor-field">
     @Html.EditorFor(model => model.Image2)
     <input type="file" id="fileUpload2" name="fileUpload2" size="23"/>
     @Html.ValidationMessageFor(model => model.Image2)
    </div>

index.cshtml…

<img src="@Url.Action("GetImage", "ProductCategoryL4", new { id =   
item.SubProductCategoryFourID })" alt="" height="100" width="100" /> 
</td>
  <td>
    <img src="@Url.Action("GetImage", "ProductCategoryL4", new { id = 
    item.SubProductCategoryFourID })" alt="" height="100" width="100" /> 
  </td>

I am using using VS2010, ASP.NET MVC3 in C# with SQL Server 2008R2. Thanks in advance but please only respond if you know the answer. If there is a better way of doing this please let me know.

Answer 1

The code that is listed is looping through the files, and for each one, setting both Image1 and Image2 to be the same thing. When you upload 2 files, they are both showing up as image 2 because that was the last image applied to both fields.

Try replacing the loop with something more like this, which sets the fields one at a time if there are enough images.

FileHandler fh = new FileHandler();

if (Request.Files.Count > 0)
{
    Createsubcat4.Image1 = fh.uploadedFileToByteArray(Request.Files[0]);
}

if (Request.Files.Count > 1)
{
    Createsubcat4.Image2 = fh.uploadedFileToByteArray(Request.Files[1]);
}

db.AddToSubProductCategory4(Createsubcat4);

If you need to open this up to allow more images in the future, you’ll want to replace the Image1 and Image2 fields with a collection of images, and use your loop again to add each image in the uploaded files collection. Something like this:

FileHandler fh = new FileHandler();

foreach (HttpPostedFileBase uploadedImage in Request.Files)
{
    Createsubcat4.Images.Add(fh.uploadedFileToByteArray(uploadedImage));
}

db.AddToSubProductCategory4(Createsubcat4);
db.SaveChanges();

---

EDIT:

Now that you are saving the images correctly, you need to take a second look at your GetImage action. You’ll notice that you correctly load both files into memory, however when you specify your action result (return new FileStreamResult(stream,"image/jpg");) you are only ever returning the first stream. You need a way to return the second stream when requested. There are a couple ways to go about this, add another input parameter to specify which image to load or create a second action that only returns the second one.

To create the two action set up, your code would look something like this:

public ActionResult GetImage1(int id)
{
    const string alternativePicturePath = @"/Content/question_mark.jpg";
    MemoryStream stream;

    SubProductCategory4 z = db.SubProductCategory4.Where(k => k.SubProductCategoryFourID == id).FirstOrDefault();

    if (z != null && z.Image1 != null)
    {
        stream = new MemoryStream(z.Image1);
    }
    else
    {
        var path = Server.MapPath(alternativePicturePath);

        stream = new MemoryStream();
        var imagex = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(path);
        imagex.Save(stream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
    }

    return new FileStreamResult(stream,"image/jpg");
}

public ActionResult GetImage2(int id)
{
    const string alternativePicturePath = @"/Content/question_mark.jpg";
    MemoryStream stream;

    SubProductCategory4 z = db.SubProductCategory4.Where(k => k.SubProductCategoryFourID == id).FirstOrDefault();

    if (z != null && z.Image2 != null) // the difference is here
    {
        stream = new MemoryStream(z.Image2); // the difference is also here
    }
    else
    {
        var path = Server.MapPath(alternativePicturePath);

        stream = new MemoryStream();
        var imagex = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(path);
        imagex.Save(stream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
    }

    return new FileStreamResult(stream,"image/jpg");
}

These functions are almost identical and can easily be made 1 which takes a parameter to select which image to load.

public ActionResult GetImage(int id, int? imageNum)
{
    imageNum = imageNum ?? 0;

    const string alternativePicturePath = @"/Content/question_mark.jpg";
    MemoryStream stream;

    SubProductCategory4 z = db.SubProductCategory4.Where(k => k.SubProductCategoryFourID == id).FirstOrDefault();

    byte[] imageData = null;

    if (z != null)
    {
        imageData = imageNum == 1 ? z.Image1 : imageNum == 2 ? z.Image2 : null;
    }

    if (imageData != null)
    {
        stream = new MemoryStream(imageData);
    }
    else
    {
        var path = Server.MapPath(alternativePicturePath);

        stream = new MemoryStream();
        var imagex = new System.Drawing.Bitmap(path);
        imagex.Save(stream, System.Drawing.Imaging.ImageFormat.Jpeg);
        stream.Seek(0, SeekOrigin.Begin);
    }

    return new FileStreamResult(stream,"image/jpg");
}

This function would specify the imageNum as a query parameter like:

http://www.mydomain.com/controllerName/GetImage/{id}?imageNum={imageNum}