Visual Basic® .NET Database Programming

Summary

The DataSet object sits at the heart of a large family of objects that correspond closely to objects in a database. The DataSet object itself corresponds to the database. The DataSet contains DataTable objects corresponding to database tables. A DataTable contains DataRow, DataColumn, and constraint objects that correspond to rows, columns, and constraints on the data.

Using the DataSet family of objects, you can model most of the structures you can build using a relational database. This chapter shows how to use those objects and provides some simple examples that used compiled-in data. Chapter 6, “Database Connections,” explains how you can move data between these objects and a relational database.