Can't put varbinary from SQL into a byte[] in C# program using SqlDataReader and ExecuteReader

Question

I have seen many solutions to this problem where people will just use Command.ExecuteScalar as byte[]; but their SQL queries are getting one varbinary field at a time. I am trying to select about 30k rows of varbinary entries, but them in a byte[] and deserialize.

Here is my code:

public void MNAdapter()
    {
        IsoStorage retVal = new IsoStorage();

        SqlConnectionStringBuilder csb = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder();
        csb.DataSource = @"LocalMachine\SQLDEV";
        csb.InitialCatalog = "Support";
        csb.IntegratedSecurity = true;
        string connString = csb.ToString();

        using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(connString))
        {
            conn.Open();

            SqlCommand command = conn.CreateCommand();
            command.CommandText = @"SELECT S.Settings
from Support.dbo.SavedLocalSettings S
inner join WebCatalog.Published.People P
on P.PKey = S.PeopleLink
inner join WebCatalog.Published.Company C
on P.Link = C.PeopleList
where S.DateSaved >= GETDATE()-34
and C.PKey != '530F4622-C30D-DD11-A23A-00304834A8C9'
and C.PKey != '7BAF7229-9249-449E-BEA5-4B366D7ECCD1'
and C.PKey != 'CCBB2140-C30D-DD11-A23A-00304834A8C9'
and S.CompanyName not like 'Tech Support%'
Group By S.PeopleLink, S.Settings";

using (SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.SequentialAccess))
                {
                    //DataTable dt = new DataTable();
                    //dt.Load(reader);

                    byte[] blob = null;
                    BinaryFormatter bf = new BinaryFormatter();
                    bf.Binder = new CustomBinder();
                    while (reader.Read())
                    {
                        reader.GetBytes(0,0,blob,0,100000);
                        Console.WriteLine(blob.ToString());
                        retVal = bf.Deserialize(new MemoryStream(blob)) as IsoStorage;
                    }
                }
            }
        }

I also tried putting them in a Data tabla first even though I thought that would be redundant, but they get read in as integers.

I don't get any errors and the data is going into the data reader, but it's like reader.GetBytes(0,0,blob,0,100000); is not even running because blob stays null.

Answer 1

Why not use:

blob = (byte[])reader.Items["Settings"];

Or

blob = (byte[])reader["Settings"];

Answer 2

reader.GetBytes(0,0,blob,0,100000); You expect this method to create the array of bytes for you. It won't - it needs a reference to an existing array. You have to prepare the array yourself.