Question

Novice here! I’m currently creating an application using Ruby on Rails.

This particular application uses binary data for content. Apparently, SQL Server is the best way to go because of the FILESTREAM feature. From what I found from documentation, this basically creates a file system for binary objects that are > 1mb.

With that said, I am using Ruby on Rails and preparing to setup the activerecord-sqlserver-adapter but I need to know how will I be able to specify a column to use FILESTREAM while setting up a database with active record migration? Would I just edit the column to accept FILESTREAM in SQL Server management? (This is obviously after allowing FILESTREAM to be used in SQL SERVER.)

So the setup I predict is:
1. install SQL Server and all supporting components
2. install activerecord-sqlserver-adpater gem
3. create a varbinary(max) database column (for the binary file) – In migration
4. specify in sql server to use said column for FILESTREAM

All in all, How do I configure to specify the use of FILESTREAM when creating a column in a database using rails/ruby?

Answer 1

No that’s not the all, every table that has a column varbinary(max) which stored as a FILESTREAM should have a column with rowguid type.

Here is a sample that I’ve used for Attachments

CREATE TABLE [dbo].[Attachment](
    [Attachment_Id] [uniqueidentifier] ROWGUIDCOL  NOT NULL,
    [ContentLength] [int] NULL,
    [ContentType] [nvarchar](100) NULL,
    [Contents] [varbinary](max) FILESTREAM  NULL,
    [DateAdded] [datetime] NULL,
    [FileName] [nvarchar](255) NULL,
    [Title] [nvarchar](255) NULL,
PRIMARY KEY CLUSTERED 
(
    [Attachment_Id] ASC
)WITH (PAD_INDEX  = OFF, STATISTICS_NORECOMPUTE  = OFF, IGNORE_DUP_KEY = OFF, ALLOW_ROW_LOCKS  = ON, ALLOW_PAGE_LOCKS  = ON) ON [PRIMARY] FILESTREAM_ON [filestream]
) ON [PRIMARY] FILESTREAM_ON [filestream]