Monthly Archives: May 2018

Exporting base64 encoded values in your databases

We recently had a prospect that had issues exporting her data using SQL Image Viewer.  She kindly sent a sample of the data, and it turned out that it was a base64 encoded string stored in a memo field.

So we got to work and now, SQL Image Viewer can decode base64 encoded data stored in memo fields.  It will recognize most image and binary file types.  For example, this is the result returned by Management Studio for a query that retrieves a base64 encoded PDF file:

 

This is the result returned by the same query in SQL Image Viewer:

 

You can immediately identify the type of data that’s stored in your database.  When you want to export the file, ensure that you select the memo field:

 

and also the Extract base64 encoded values in memo fields option:

 

For now, SQL Image Viewer will not inspect binary blob fields for base64 encoded data, as it wouldn’t make sense to store text values in a binary fields.  However, if you do find yourself in such a situation, do drop us a line at support@yohz.com.

Download a trial of SQL Image Viewer now, or buy a license from only USD 45.