Visual Basic 2005: A Developer's Notebook

Chapter 5. Files, Databases, and XML

.NET 1.0 revolutionized Visual Basic data access with a whole new object model for interacting with files, connecting to databases, and manipulating XML. In .NET 2.0, the revolution continues with a slew of minor improvements, some new features, and a tool for generating data access code automatically, all designed to make life better for the VB programmer.

Tip

What you won't learn about in this chapter are the new .NET Framework features designed for SQL Server 2005. These include using .NET code to program user-defined data types and stored procedures, SQL Server 2005 notifications, and multiple active recordsets (MARS). For more information about these SQL Server 2005 features, please pay a visit to the MSDN SQL Server 2005 Developer Center at http://msdn.microsoft.com/SQL/2005.

Get Drive Information

.NET includes handy DirectoryInfo and FileInfo classes for gathering information about files and directories. However, in .NET 1.x there wasn't any way to get a list of all the drives on your computer without using unmanaged calls to the Windows API. Thankfully, the DriveInfo class finally debuts in .NET 2.0.

Note

The DriveInfo class lets you easily retrieve information about the drives on your computer.

Tip

Before going any further, start by importing the System.IO namespace. The file access classes in .NET 2.0 (FileInfo, DirInfo, and DriveInfo) all exist there. Whether you access them directly or through the My object, you'll need to import this ...