Advanced manipulation on automatic data binding in .NET, architectural problem

Question

I have application with following data flow:

SqlDatabase -> SqlDataAdapter + SqlCommandBuilder -> DataSet -> DataGridView

All conversions and bindings are automatic. This is all simple and functional and I can load all kinds of databases with simple code. Problem is with BLOBs, they are treated as Image in DataGridView. My question is how to handle BLOBs that are not Images and show them as I want with minimal work?

Ugly alternative that comes in mind when BLOB is some kind of text is:

SqlDatabase -> SqlDataAdapter + SqlCommandBuilder -> DataSet -> 
  convert blob to required text format -> DataSet -> DataGridView

This would require for me to only provide conversion between DataSets in both Directions so that everything works automaticly. That comes down on two functions converting BLOB <-> string

Where can i put this functions in first architecture, as I don't want 2 DataSets. I need to place them in some handler or somewhere between two steps not to interfere with automatic binding, and that Update of data back to SqlDatabase still works.

Answer 1

Use varbinary. Easier to work with, BLOBs always been problematic to work with.