Chapter 10
Introduction to Data and Databases
What you will learn in this chapter:
- What a database is
- What tools WebMatrix provides for working with data
- What SQL is and how to use it
- How relationships work within databases
- How to use the Database Helper
Up to this point, most of the data you have worked with has been stored temporarily in variables within your C# code. You have persisted (saved) some data to text files, such as the exception logging that you created in the last chapter, and you have generated data that resides in e-mails in a number of exercises. You also created folders containing image data in Chapter 8. Data has so far come in many different forms, but none of it very structured or organized. As your site grows and the number of users increases, you will gather more and more data. You will need to be able to store this permanently, and you will need to be able to query it, display it, change it, and even remove it.
You will need to be able to organize your data so that it is well structured. This will make it easier to manipulate. You will also need some means of communicating how you would like to manipulate the data programmatically. In this chapter, you explore solutions to these two requirements — the structure provided by databases, and the means of communication provided by Structured Query Language (SQL).
What is a Database?
A database is a software program designed for the storage, retrieval, and manipulation of data. Databases come in a number of ...
