Removing OLE Header from images stored in MS Access DB as OLE Object

This is the first non-SharePoint blog post I am writingJ. I am writing because this is interesting and it seems lots of people faced or facing similar issues. If you are storing images in Access DB table as OLE object, and you are adding images programmatically (for example uploading images from an aspx page), then you might not face this issue. This problem occurs when you are adding images directly into the Access database table after opening it through MS Access client. When you try to retrieve those images you will find those do not open in Web Pages or any other program. This is because Access adds OLE Header in front of those images.

Here is a function that will remove the OLE Header from different types of images. I found the original code with the example of BMP, JPEG images somewhere I forgot the source and it was also referred by Andy Spears (MS Partner). Rest is done by me.

private byte[] GetImageBytesFromOLEField(byte[] oleFieldBytes)

    {

        const string BITMAP_ID_BLOCK = "BM";

        const string JPG_ID_BLOCK = "\u00FF\u00D8\u00FF";

        const string PNG_ID_BLOCK = "\u0089PNG\r\n\u001a\n";

        const string GIF_ID_BLOCK = "GIF8";

        const string TIFF_ID_BLOCK = "II*\u0000";

        byte[] imageBytes;

        // Get a UTF7 Encoded string version

        Encoding u8 = Encoding.UTF7;

        string strTemp = u8.GetString(oleFieldBytes);

        // Get the first 300 characters from the string

        string strVTemp = strTemp.Substring(0, 300);

        // Search for the block

        int iPos = -1;

        if (strVTemp.IndexOf(BITMAP_ID_BLOCK) != -1)

            iPos = strVTemp.IndexOf(BITMAP_ID_BLOCK);

        else if (strVTemp.IndexOf(JPG_ID_BLOCK) != -1)

            iPos = strVTemp.IndexOf(JPG_ID_BLOCK);

        else if (strVTemp.IndexOf(PNG_ID_BLOCK) != -1)

            iPos = strVTemp.IndexOf(PNG_ID_BLOCK);

        else if (strVTemp.IndexOf(GIF_ID_BLOCK) != -1)

            iPos = strVTemp.IndexOf(GIF_ID_BLOCK);

        else if (strVTemp.IndexOf(TIFF_ID_BLOCK) != -1)

            iPos = strVTemp.IndexOf(TIFF_ID_BLOCK);

        else

            throw new Exception("Unable to determine header size for the OLE Object");

        // From the position above get the new image

        if (iPos == -1)

            throw new Exception("Unable to determine header size for the OLE Object");

        //Array.Copy(

        imageBytes = new byte[oleFieldBytes.LongLength - iPos];

        MemoryStream ms = new MemoryStream();

        ms.Write(oleFieldBytes, iPos, oleFieldBytes.Length - iPos);

        imageBytes = ms.ToArray();

        ms.Close();

        ms.Dispose();

        return imageBytes;

    }

Comments

• Anonymous
  July 15, 2008
  PingBack from http://blog.a-foton.ru/2008/07/removing-ole-header-from-images-stored-in-ms-access-db-as-ole-object/

• Anonymous
  May 21, 2009
  Fantastic! This is pure genius! I was having a real headache trying to get jpeg data in an Access OLE object field to display in the browser until I stumbled across your code here. I reckon that without good programmers like yourself sharing information like this we'd all be a lot worse off. two thumbs up

• Anonymous
  January 30, 2010
  The comment has been removed

• Anonymous
  July 14, 2011
  This seems to be what I'm looking for, but how do I use it?  I need to convert 350 records that contain 1 ole picture column.

• Anonymous
  July 31, 2012
  Hello Please could you tell me how I could use this in JAVA? Regards Mitchell myemail [AT] mrincworld [DOT] com

• Anonymous
  November 30, 2012
  Eversome. Thank you

• Anonymous
  January 24, 2013
  Hello, A Java version of this code: http://wp.me/pdjRF-VG Thanks!