Essential ADO.NET

4.1. DataSets

In this chapter, we begin our journey into the disconnected data access model by looking at the DataSet class. As described in Chapter 2, DataSet is a specialized collection class. It is the top-level object in the disconnected ADO.NET data access model. The DataSet class is built around relational data concepts, the CLR type system, and .NET collections. It can exchange data with both XML providers and data providers, or it can be manipulated directly in program code.

The DataSet class is meant to provide a cache of data outside the database that can be used in read-only mode, thereby preventing unnecessary round-trips to the database to fetch lookup tables—that is, tables of relatively constant information, such as interest rates, ...