Inserting images from file path -- Not getting value on the select statement - sql-server-2008

Question

DECLARE #imgString varchar(800)
DECLARE #insertString varchar(3000)
DECLARE #imgNumber int
Declare #imgName varchar(100)
SET #imgNumber = 1
WHILE #imgNumber<> 101
BEGIN
SET #imgName = 'SELECT (items) FROM dbo.building_piclink'
SET #imgString = 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\photos\' + #imgName
SET #insertString = 'INSERT INTO dbo.building__ATTACH (DATA)
SELECT * FROM OPENROWSET(BULK N''' + #imgString + ''', SINGLE_BLOB) as tempImg'
SET #imgNumber = #imgNumber + 1
END
GO
I am having problems with the #imgName. I can't figure out how to get the value from the select statement not the (items) like below:
C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\photos\SELECT (items) FROM dbo.building_piclink
Thank you!

Answer 1

Your code has several problems:
1) You're selecting a file name from the view - but what if that view contains more than one entry?? Which filename are you selecting?? Your current code first of all doesn't work at all the way it is, and even if it were working - you're still potentially selecting hundreds of filenames into a single variable - which of course won't work....
So you'll need to fix this here first:
SET #imgName = 'SELECT (items) FROM dbo.building_piclink'
First of all - loose the single quotes:
SELECT #imgName = (items) FROM dbo.building_piclink
But now - do you have a unique ID that you can select for? Or do you want to get just the first entry (whatever that is) ??
So either you need:
SELECT #imgName = ImageFileName FROM dbo.building_piclink WHERE ..........
and fill in that WHERE clause with a condition that guarantees to return just a single row, or use TOP 1:
SELECT TOP (1) #imgName = ImageFileName FROM dbo.building_piclink
In that case - you'll just get exactly one filename - if you don't specify an ORDER BY, then there's no guarantee what you'll get - maybe you'll want to add a ORDER BY DueDate or something to prioritize which file names you get first.
2) Your code for loading the image data is non workable, either - what you need to do is build up the SQL statement as a string, and then execute it (called dynamic SQL) - something like this:
SET #imgString = 'C:\Documents and Settings\Administrator\Desktop\photos\' + #imgName
SET #insertString =
'INSERT INTO dbo.building__ATTACH (DATA)
SELECT * FROM OPENROWSET(BULK N''' + #imgString + ''', SINGLE_BLOB) as tempImg'
EXEC(#insertString) -- actually execute your SQL statement!
With these two fixes, you should be on the way to get this thing working