In using ESS to browse and report on data from an ESS (SQL server 2008R2) database, I'd always wished that varbinary (BLOB) columns could be mapped to containers in Filemaker.

Alas, they do not, but I just discovered that an ODBC import shows these varbinary fields and when I import and map them to a local container field, the container gets a file with the name 'Untitled.dat'

The SQL DB also has fields for BLOB filename and extension. So if I export the field contents and name the export appropriately, the resulting file is identical to what was inserted into the SQL server database from our LIMS software.

Has anyone else seen this feature documented anywhere? And am I treading on thin ice if I start to make use of such an undocumented (and awesome) feature?

UPDATE: I have pulled down >100,000 BLOBS into a local .fmp12 db using the above method, and then successfully exported field conents. Checking about 50 of the results randomly, they match perfectly with the source data. I have a few hundred thousand more to go, after which I will use my newly purchased copy of 360 works scribe to pull the text information out of the supported file types so they may be indexed for filemaker searching.