I have an application that shows a form to the users. The form is taken by the server and stored in a database where the information can be read on another page in the application. Part of the form takes an image, where the image is converted to a Base64 string and sent to Azure to be stored, and the URL to the image is stored in the database as a string. This all works fine. My trouble comes from trying to implement a feature where users can select multiple images.
I tried changing the string Image {get;set;} to a List<string> {get;set;} where the database would just store a list of the URLs where I could iterate through them in the application. This obviously did not work, as through some research, I learned that databases cannot store lists.
I am now wondering what I can do here. Is there a simpler way of doing this that I'm missing? What am I doing wrong?
I tried changing the string Image {get;set;} to a List {get;set;} where the database would just store a list of the URLs where I could iterate through them in the application. This obviously did not work, as through some research, I learned that databases cannot store lists.
You can try to use the following methods:
Add separator between the Image urls. Use string Image {get;set;} to store the image urls, the value like this: "image1url,image2url,etc" (use the , as the separator). You can consider using the String.Join Method.
Create a new Image table to store the Image information (contains ID, Name, Urls), then configure one-to-many relationship between the Main table and the Image model. In the Main model, use navigation property to add the Image. Code like this:
public class Main
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public List<Image> Images { get; set; }
}
public class Image
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public string Url { get; set; }
}
More detail information about the Entity relationship, see:
Configuring One To Many Relationships in Entity Framework Core