Can I save an 'Object' in a SQL Server database?

Here is an example if you are using Entity Framework (EF):

using (DbContext db = new DbContext())
{
    // The object that you want to serialize. In this case it is just an empty instance
    YourObject objectToSerialize = new YourObject();
    IFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
    using (MemoryStream stream = new MemoryStream())
    {
        formatter.Serialize(stream, objectToSerialize);

        // EF model. In one of its properties you store the serialized object
        YourModel modelObject = new YourModel();

        // In your model 'SerializedObject' should be of type byte[]. In the database it should be of type varbinary(MAX)
        modelObject.SerializedObject = stream.ToArray(); 
        db.YourModel.Add(modelObject);
        db.SaveChanges();
    }
}

And this is how to de-serialize the object:

// De-serialize
IFormatter formatter = new BinaryFormatter();
Stream stream = new MemoryStream(serializedObject);
YourObject deserializedYourObject = (YourObject)formatter.Deserialize(stream);
stream.Close();

I would use JSON to convert the object to a string, and store it in a VARCHAR or TEXT field. Not only the data is stored in a human-readable format, but it's also also readable from different languages, since pretty much every mainstream language has a JSON parser available.

The link I posted has links to several libraries in many languages (including C#), I have used this one a couple times in the past.

You can use the VARBINARY(MAX) field type in SQL Server, if you like. You can store any type of object in there, up to 2 GB in size.

To access it, you can use ADO.NET - something like this:

object yourMysteryObject = (whatever you like it to be);

MemoryStream memStream = new MemoryStream();
StreamWriter sw = new StreamWriter(memStream);

sw.Write(yourMysteryObject);

SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand("INSERT INTO TableName(VarBinaryColumn) VALUES (@VarBinary)", sqlConnection);

sqlCmd.Parameters.Add("@VarBinary", SqlDbType.VarBinary, Int32.MaxValue);

sqlCmd.Parameters["@VarBinary"].Value = memStream.GetBuffer();

sqlCmd.ExecuteNonQuery();

Marc