I am currently saving binary files (xls, doc, pdf) in Sybase from VB. As you can image, these files get pretty large and therefore, the database gets huge fast.

Does anyone have ideas on how to quickly compress files in a automated fashion prior to sending the to the db and expanding them before launching them from the db?

pkzip? ms expand? (what's the opposite of expand? the decompression program included with windows)

I'm looking for some suggestions.


Thanks,
John