Introduction
Almost all applications need to store and retrieve data. This can be in the form of structured data stored in a relational database management system (RDBMS) and accessed via an API (Application Programming Interface) such as ODBC (Open Database Connectivity) or ADO.NET (covered in Chapters 6 and 7). The data could be configuration information used to control the way in which the application works for a specific user or machine. This data is normally stored in the registry or in format-specific files (such as .INI or .CONFIG files) where a unique API exists to access the data. However, in many situations an application still needs to access a file directly on disk in either a generic manner or in a manner unique to the application. ...
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