How to get Binary equivalent of BLOB data type in Oracle

Question

I am using C# for front end and Oracle as a database. I have a BLOB type field in a table and is used to contain images. What I actually need to do is that whenever a record in table doesn't contain any image I want to show default pic for that particular record in front end. For that purpose can I get a binary format of that default image(without saving that image with a dummy record) after saving it temporarily in database, and then using that binary format in query to show default pic when the image doesn't exists for any record. What I am getting now is :

 SELECT EMP_IMG FROM Employee_Master WHERE EMP_CODE = 1234
 ----------------------------------------------------------
 (BLOB)

Answer 1

Look into byte[]; use Binary Serializer to get the byte[] version of the object. See this: C# Object Binary Serialization