file.asp
Open notepad and create a new file. Name it as file.asp. Copy the following code and paste it into the newly created file.asp file and hit the save button :

<%
   ' -- file.asp --
   ' Retrieves binary files from the database
   
   Response.Buffer = True
   
   ' ID of the file to retrieve
   Dim ID
      ID = Request("ID")
      
   If Len(ID) < 1 Then
      ID = 7
   End If
   
   ' Connection String
   Dim connStr
      connStr = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=" & _
         Server.MapPath("FileDB.mdb")
   
   ' Recordset Object
   Dim rs
      Set rs = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")
      
      ' opening connection
      rs.Open "SELECT [File Name], [File Data], [Content Type] FROM Files " & _
            " WHERE ID = " & ID, connStr, 2, 4

      If Not rs.EOF Then
            Response.AddHeader "Content-Disposition", "filename=" & _
                  rs("File Name)
            Response.ContentType = rs("Content Type")
            Response.BinaryWrite rs("File Data")
      End If
      
      
      rs.Close
      Set rs = Nothing
%>

Explanation

<%
	' -- file.asp --
	' Retrieves binary files from the database

	Response.Buffer = True

	' ID of the file to retrieve
	Dim ID
		ID = Request.QueryString("ID")

Sets the buffering to True. Next we create a variable named ID and set it's value to the Request.QueryString("ID").

' Connection String
Dim connStr
	connStr = "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OLEDB.4.0; Data Source=" & _
	Server.MapPath("FileDB.mdb")

Next we create a connStr variable as the connection string to the database and set it's path to FileDB.mdb database.

' Recordset Object
Dim rs
	Set rs = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Recordset")

	' SQL SELECT Statement
	Dim sql_select
	sql_select = "SELECT [File Name], [File Data], [Content Type] "
	sql_select = sql_select & "FROM Files WHERE ID = " & ID

	' opening connection
	rs.Open sql_select, connStr, 2, 4

Create a Recordset object and run a SELECT statement to retrieve the File Name, File Data and Content Type of the given file.

Note that File Data field contains the saved binary data for the file, while Content Type field contains the content type for the file. We need both of them to display the file. The "Content-Disposition" header is necessary to send the file with the correct name back to the browser.

If Not rs.EOF Then
            Response.AddHeader "Content-Disposition", "filename=" & _
                  rs("File Name)
            Response.ContentType = rs("Content Type")
            Response.BinaryWrite rs("File Data")
End If

If Recordset is not empty i.e, there is a file with given ID, then we set the Content Type of given ASP page to file's Content Type. Next we use Response.BinaryWrite method to write the binary data to the client browser. The file will thus be shown to the client.

		rs.Close
		Set rs = Nothing
%>

We close the connection to the database.

On the next page I summarize the steps involved in displaying binary data from the database.

Summary
This article was second in the series of articles about manipulating binary data via ASP and storing it in the database. In this article we built files which were missing in the ASP-Database file uploader application in the first article. show.asp simply displayed a list of all the files in the database. file.asp was the actual file which will send the binary data back to the client.

You must have noticed that how easy it is to write binary data from the database via ASP to the client. There are two things to keep in mind while doing that. First, always properly set the Content Type of the page using Response.ContentType property. Secondly, use one ASP page to display only ONE file like we did with file.asp. And that page should not write anything else to the browser i.e, don't try to write text in an ASP page as we do in other ASP pages when you've already used the Response.BinaryWrite method.

Well that's it for this article. You should continue your reading and read the other two articles of this series; "inserting binary data to the database" and "uploading binary data ( files ) to the server hard disk". That'll be enough.