C#® Developer's Guide to ASP.NET, XML, and ADO.NET

Using Data Adapters to Retrieve and Manipulate Data

In database programming, it's common to retrieve data and then perform other actions on the data (such as inserting new data, updating existing data, and deleting data). Often an application will need to take different actions based on the results of one or more queries or stored procedure calls.

In ADO.old, this can be accomplished through the use of a cursor. A cursor-based approach is expensive, however, because it implies a persistent connection to the data source. ADO.old does support a batch-update model whereby the developer can retrieve data, perform updates, and then reconnect to the data source and commit the updates in one operation (known as a batch).

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