Tag: Filetable

Creating a directory in a Filetable share is easy. It looks like this:

It’s hard to see, but this was a right click, New, Folder in the share from Windows Explorer.

However what about creating a directory from T-SQL? That’s almost as easy.

I created that folder above by running this code:

-- create a folder
INSERT  INTO dbo.Explorer
        ( name, is_directory )
VALUES  ( 'Books', 1 );

I provided a name for my folder and then a 1 for the is_directory property. Once I ran this, the folder above appeared in my share.

Note that this works for folders in the root, but not nested folders. I’ll tackle that in another post.

At my Filestream/Filetable talk yesterday at SQL Intersection, someone asked me about programmatically adding a file to a Filetable. Easy enough, I thought, since I’d seen someone do this in .NET and was thinking this has to be simple. Turns out it’s not quite so simple.

I was assuming that I could use the GetDescendent method of the hierarchy ID for the path_locator field to get the path you needed and insert that. It turns out that’s not correct.

I searched around when that didn’t work and found this post from Bob Beauchemin and a question on StackOverflow. If the two, Bob’s post explains things better. He actually dug into the Filetable, looking at the constraints and defaults in the schema. If you do that, you can find this constraint on the path_locator field:

The code in this constraint looks like this, which matches with what Bob and SO show as the way to calculate the path.

ALTER TABLE [dbo].[Explorer] ADD  CONSTRAINT [DF__Explorer__path_l__6477ECF3]  
DEFAULT (CONVERT(HIERARCHYID, '/' +     CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), CONVERT(BIGINT, SUBSTRING(CONVERT(BINARY(16), NEWID()), 1, 6))) + '.' +
     CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), CONVERT(BIGINT, SUBSTRING(CONVERT(BINARY(16), NEWID()), 7, 6))) + '.' +
     CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), CONVERT(BIGINT, SUBSTRING(CONVERT(BINARY(16), NEWID()), 13, 4))) + '/')) FOR [path_locator]
GO

This means that your insert statement needs to perform this calculation. For me, I decided to insert a jpg of a circle into the table, under the folder “books”. The folder looks like this:

Since I have the binary values for a circle image, I’ll use those, and then the code below. The first part of this code calculates the new path that’s needed, basing this on the path_locator value for the “Books” folder, and then building a NewID(). From there, it’s a simple insert.

DECLARE @path HIERARCHYID
DECLARE @new_path VARCHAR(675)
 
SELECT  @path = path_locator
FROM    dbo.Explorer
WHERE   name = 'Books'

SELECT  @new_path = @path.ToString()
        + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), CONVERT(BIGINT, SUBSTRING(CONVERT(BINARY(16), NEWID()),
                                                         1, 6))) + '.'
        + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), CONVERT(BIGINT, SUBSTRING(CONVERT(BINARY(16), NEWID()),
                                                         7, 6))) + '.'
        + CONVERT(VARCHAR(20), CONVERT(BIGINT, SUBSTRING(CONVERT(BINARY(16), NEWID()),
                                                         13, 4))) + '/'
INSERT INTO dbo.Explorer
        ( stream_id
        , file_stream
        , name
        , path_locator
        )
VALUES  ( NEWID()
        , 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
        , 'Circle.jpg'
        , @new_path      
      );
go

If I now look at the folder, I see this:

An insert into the folder of a file.

I could easily adapt this to stream in the binary values from a .NET application, or OPENROWSET, but this works well enough.