Converting SQL2005 DBTimeStamp to Long for Comparison (Convert from Hex to long and decimal to Hex)

If you need to Convert SQL 2005 DB TimeStamp values to Long then follow these steps:
1. Retrieve the DB TimeStamp value in a Byte Array (8 bytes long).
2. Convert the byte array into a Hexadecimal string
3. Convert the hexadecimal string to a long

private long BytesToLong(byte[] bytes)
{
    string ts = null;
    foreach (byte b in bytes)
        ts += b.ToString("X").PadLeft(2,Convert.ToChar("0"));
    return Convert.ToInt64(ts, 16);
}

There is another method to convert the DBTimeStamp to Long, but I dont prefer this method since it can return negative values. The method is:

1. Retrieve the DB TimeStamp value in a Byte Array (8 bytes long).
2. Use BitConverter class to convert the byte array into long

long result = BitConverter.ToInt64(dbTimestamp, 0); 

Inorder to remedy this use the following to generate the same long value as in step 1:

public static long FromDbTimestamp(byte[] dbTimestamp)
{
    long result = 0;
    if (dbTimestamp != null)
    {
        Array.Reverse(dbTimestamp);
        result = BitConverter.ToInt64(dbTimestamp, 0);
    }

    return result;
}

Finally to convert a long into the correct DBTimeStamp use this:

public static byte[] ToDbTimestamp(long timestamp)
{
    byte[] result = BitConverter.GetBytes(timestamp);
    Array.Reverse(result);
    return result;
}