SQL Server

Control Overwriting When Saving Attachments

Demonstrates the Chilkat Email.OverwriteExisting property. When true (the default), the methods that save attachments and related items overwrite files that already exist. When false, those methods instead append a short 4-character string to create a unique filename, and the filename stored in the email object is updated so your program can discover the actual file(s) created. This setting applies only when writing to the filesystem. This example disables overwriting and saves all attachments.

Background: Attachment filenames come from the sender and are not guaranteed to be unique — two different emails (or even two parts of one email) can both be named invoice.pdf. When saving many attachments into one folder, that collision would silently destroy data if each save overwrote the last. Setting OverwriteExisting to false makes Chilkat generate a distinct name instead, and reading the updated filename back from the object tells you where the file actually landed.

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--
CREATE PROCEDURE ChilkatSample
AS
BEGIN
    DECLARE @hr int
    DECLARE @iTmp0 int
    DECLARE @sTmp0 nvarchar(4000)
    DECLARE @success int
    SELECT @success = 0

    --  Demonstrates the Email.OverwriteExisting property.  When true (the default), the
    --  methods that save attachments and related items overwrite existing files.  When
    --  false, Chilkat instead creates a unique filename (appending 4 characters) so an
    --  existing file is not overwritten.

    DECLARE @email int
    EXEC @hr = sp_OACreate 'Chilkat.Email', @email OUT
    IF @hr <> 0
    BEGIN
        PRINT 'Failed to create ActiveX component'
        RETURN
    END

    EXEC sp_OASetProperty @email, 'Subject', 'Attachment save demo'
    EXEC sp_OAMethod @email, 'AddStringAttachment', @success OUT, 'report.txt', 'Attachment contents.'

    --  Do not overwrite an existing file; create a unique filename instead.
    EXEC sp_OASetProperty @email, 'OverwriteExisting', 0

    EXEC sp_OAMethod @email, 'SaveAllAttachments', @success OUT, 'qa_output/attachments'
    IF @success = 0
      BEGIN
        EXEC sp_OAGetProperty @email, 'LastErrorText', @sTmp0 OUT
        PRINT @sTmp0
        EXEC @hr = sp_OADestroy @email
        RETURN
      END


    EXEC sp_OAGetProperty @email, 'OverwriteExisting', @iTmp0 OUT
    PRINT 'Saved.  OverwriteExisting = ' + @iTmp0

    EXEC @hr = sp_OADestroy @email


END
GO