Beginning ASP.NET 3.5: In C# and VB

12.6. Summary

This chapter built on the general knowledge you gained in the previous chapter about accessing a database through SQL. It started off with a discussion of the numerous controls in the Data category of the Toolbox in Visual Web Developer.

These controls can be split in two groups: data-bound controls and data source controls. The first group of controls — including the GridView, the DetailsView, and the ListView — is used to display data in a web page. Most, but not all of them allow you to maintain your data as well, by exposing inserting, updating, and deleting capabilities.

The other group, the data source controls, have no visual appearance themselves. They serve as a bridge between the user interface and the database. There are a number of different data source controls, each providing access to a specific kind of data store. In this chapter you saw the SqlDataSource control, which allows you to retrieve data from many different kinds of relational databases.

To offer your users an easy way to manage simple data, like the Genre table in the system, you can use the GridView in conjunction with a DetailsView. Hooked up to a SqlDataSource, the GridView offers you advanced features like data display, sorting, paging, updating, and deleting with little to no code. The DetailsView then allows your users to insert new records, as the GridView does not natively support inserting.

To filter data that you display in your web pages, you need to set up a WHERE clause in ...