Beginning Microsoft® Visual Basic® 2008

Chapter 17. Database Programming with SQL Server and ADO.NET

Chapter 16 introduced database programming. You obtained data from a single table in an Access database and displayed it on a grid. You managed to give the user some cool features while writing virtually no code.

You used wizards that wrote most of the code for you—including setting up the connection, configuring the data adapter, and generating a typed dataset. This works great for simple database access using one or two tables, but writing the code yourself can give you a lot more control.

This chapter dives much deeper into the topic of database access. The database access technologies you used in the previous chapter, including components for retrieving data, storing data in memory, and binding data to controls, are collectively called ADO.NET. You will explore how you can use the built-in capabilities of ADO.NET to retrieve and update data from databases. You will also learn to manipulate, filter, and edit data held in memory by the DataSet.

The data you extract will be bound to controls on your form, so you will also need to explore binding more thoroughly. You will see how you can use controls to view one record at a time (for example, using text boxes) and how to navigate between records, using the CurrencyManager object.

In this chapter, you will:

• Learn about ADO.NET objects

• Bind data to controls

• Search for and sort in-memory data using ADO.NET DataView objects

• Select, insert, update, and delete data in a database using ...