Basics of ADO.
NET
ADO.NET
ADO.NET is a set of classes (a framework) to interact with data sources such as
databases and XML files. ADO is the acronym for ActiveX Data Objects. It
allows us to connect to underlying data or databases. It has classes and methods
to retrieve and manipulate data.
The following are a few of the .NET applications that use ADO.NET to connect
to a database, execute commands and retrieve data from the database.
ASP.NET Web Applications
Console Applications
Windows Applications.
Various Connection Architectures
There are the following two types of connection architectures:
1. Connected architecture: the application remains connected with the
database throughout the processing.
2. Disconnected architecture: the application automatically
connects/disconnects during the processing. The application uses temporary
data on the application side called a DataSet.
Understanding ADO.NET and it's class library
In this diagram, we can see that there are various types of applications (Web
Application, Console Application, Windows Application and so on) that use
ADO.NET to connect to databases (SQL Server, Oracle, OleDb, ODBC, XML
files and so on).
Important Classes in ADO.NET
We can also observe various classes in the preceding diagram. They are:
1. Connection Class
2. Command Class
3. DataReader Class
4. DataAdaptor Class
5. DataSet.Class
1. Connection Class
In ADO.NET, we use these connection classes to connect to the database. These
connection classes also manage transactions and connection pooling.
2. Command Class
The Command class provides methods for storing and executing SQL
statements and Stored Procedures. The following are the various commands that
are executed by the Command Class.
ExecuteReader: Returns data to the client as rows. This would typically be
an SQL select statement or a Stored Procedure that contains one or more
select statements. This method returns a DataReader object that can be used
to fill a DataTable object or used directly for printing reports and so forth.
ExecuteNonQuery: Executes a command that changes the data in the
database, such as an update, delete, or insert statement, or a Stored Procedure
that contains one or more of these statements. This method returns an integer
that is the number of rows affected by the query.
ExecuteScalar: This method only returns a single value. This kind of query
returns a count of rows or a calculated value.
ExecuteXMLReader: (SqlClient classes only) Obtains data from an SQL
Server 2000 database using an XML stream. Returns an XML Reader object.
3. DataReader Class
The DataReader is used to retrieve data. It is used in conjunction with the
Command class to execute an SQL Select statement and then access the returned
rows.
4. DataAdapter Class
The DataAdapter is used to connect DataSets to databases. The DataAdapter is
most useful when using data-bound controls in Windows Forms, but it can also
be used to provide an easy way to manage the connection between your
application and the underlying database tables, views and Stored Procedures.
5. DataSet Class
The DataSet is the heart of ADO.NET. The DataSet is essentially a collection of
DataTable objects. In turn each object contains a collection of DataColumn and
DataRow objects. The DataSet also contains a Relations collection that can be
used to define relations among Data Table Objects.
How to Connect to a Database using ADO.NET
Now let us learn how to connect to a database using ADO.NET. To create a
connection, you must be familiar with connection strings. A connection string is
required as a parameter to SQLConnection. A ConnectionString is a string
variable (not case sensitive).
This contains key and value pairs, like provider, server, database, userid and
word as in the following:
Server="nameof the server or IP Address of the server"
Database="name of the database"
userid="user name who has permission to work with database"
password="the password of user"
Example
SQL Authentication
String constr="server=.;database=institute;user id=rakesh;word=abc@123";
Or:
String constr="data source=.;initial
catalog=institute;uid=rakesh;pwd=abc@213";
Windows Authentication
String constr="server=.;database=institute;trusted_connection=true"
Or:
String constr="server=.;initial catalog=institute;integrated security=true"
How to retrieve and display data from a database
1. Create a SqlConnection object using a connection string.
2. Handle exceptions.
3. Open the connection.
4. Create a SQLCommand. To represent a SQLCommand like (select * from
studentdetails) and attach the existing connection to it. Specify the type of
SQLCommand (text/storedprocedure).
5. Execute the command (use executereader).
6. Get the Result (use SqlDataReader). This is a forwardonly/readonly
dataobject.
7. Close the connection
8. Process the result
9. Display the Result
The following is code for connecting to a SQL Database:
You must use the System.Data.SqlClient namespace to connect to a SQL
Database. In the preceding code we are using the SqlConnection class,
SqlCommand class and SqlDataReader class because our application is talking
to SQL Server. SQL Server only understands SQL.
Code for connecting to Oracle Database
If you want to connect to an Oracle database, all you need to do is to change the
connection class name from SqlConnection to OracleConnection Command
class name from SqlCommand to OracleCommand
and SqlDataReader to OracleDataReader and also in the beginning use the
namespace System.Data.OralceClient.
