Hi there.

I'm developing a small application that uses Web Services to access database
and store data.

At some point, I store some images, by inserting the absolute image path
into a varchar field (SQL Server 2005). Images themselves are copied to that
path on the server. To read the images, I just use this path.

However, some workstations have to authenticate the server that path. To
avoid other problems, like deleting those images, I want to store images
directly in database, on a Image field.

So, after this long intro, I could have this code on server side (WS), to
save images:

/****/
[WebMethod]
public void SaveImage( string name, byte[] imageData )
{
  //use the web.config to store the connection string
  SqlConnection connection = new
SqlConnection(ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["DSN"]);
  SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand( "INSERT INTO Image(name, data)
VALUES (@name, @data)", connection );
  SqlParameter pName = new SqlParameter( "@name", SqlDbType.VarChar,50 );
  pName.Value = name;
  command.Parameters.Add( pName );
  SqlParameter pData = new SqlParameter( "@data", SqlDbType.Image );
  pData.Value = imageData;
  command.Parameters.Add( pData );
  try
  {
     connection.Open();
     int numRowsAffected = command.ExecuteNonQuery();
  }
  finally
  {
     connection.Close();
  }
}
/****/

and on client side:

/****/
remoteService.ServiceSoapClient srv = new remoteService.ServiceSoapClient();
Image image = Image.FromFile(@"c:\myimage.bmp");
using(MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
{
  image.Save( stream );
  byte[] buffer = steam.ToByteArray();
  srv.SaveImage( "myimage", buffer );
}
/****/

My questions: is this good practice? Is there a better way to do it?

Thanks in advance. Sorry the long post.

Marco