Question

I have a dataset fetched from a ODBC data source (MySQL), I need to temporarily put it into a SQL Server DB to be fetched by another process (and then transformed further).

Instead of creating a nicely formatted database table I’d rather have one field of type text and whack the stuff there.

This is only a data migration exercise, a one-off, so I don’t care about elegance, performance, or any other aspects of it.

All I want is to be able to de-serialize the “text-blob” (or binary) back into anything resembling a dataset. A Dictionary object would do the trick too.

Any quick fixes for me? 🙂

Answer 1

Use DataSet.WriteXml to write out your “text-blob” then use DataSet.ReadXml later when you want to translate the “text-blob” back into a DataSet to perform whatever subsequent manipulations you want to do.