ADO.NET – Over 3 Hours of Premium Video Tutorials

Here is a collection of over 3 hours of premium video tutorials on ADO.NET by Learn Visual Studio. In order to view the videos, you need to become a member of Learn Visual Studio.

Background: ADO.NET is an outgrowth of ADO (ActiveX Data Objects) technology. ADO relied on COM objects whereas ADO.NET is based on the .NET Framework. ADO.NET does not replace ADO for the COM programmer; rather, it provides the .NET programmer with access to relational data sources, XML, and application data.

Purpose: ADO.NET is used to access data and data services. The data is usually a relational database, but it does not have to be.

Architecture: ADO.NET is part of the Base Class Library. ADO.NET consists of two parts:

• Data Provider

Data providers provide access to the data source. The data source can be: SQL Server, Oracle, or OLEDB (ex. Access). Each data source has its own set of provider objects, but they all include these common utility classes:

• Connection – Provides a connection to the datasoure. It is like a phone line that connects the application to the database.
• Command – Command is used to perform some action (add, update, delete, select, etc.) on the database.
• Parameter – This is a variable in the command.
• DataAdapter – The data adapter provides a bridge between the data source object and the data set object.
• DataReader – Allows you to access records sequentially, one record at a time.

DataSets represent in-memory relational databases. Datasets represent a schema that can contain one or more tables and the relationships between the tables.

• DataTable represents a single data table that is made up of rows and columns.
• DataView is an overlay for a datatable that can contain a sort and a filter.
• DataRelation is a relation between tables.
• Constraint describes an enforced property of the database.

A DataSet is populated from a database by a DataAdapter whose Connection and Command properties have been specified. A DataSet can save its contents to XML, or populate itself from XML, making it very useful for web services and distributed computing.

ADO.NET