MCSD Certification Toolkit (Exam 70-483): Programming in C#

Chapter 9

Working with Data

What You Will Learn in This Chapter

• Working with data collections
• Consuming data
• Performing I/O operations
• Understanding serialization

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Managing data is an essential part of most applications, and understanding all the options available to you is critical when studying for the test, but also for advancing your career as a developer. The first section in this chapter will explain the concept of arrays and collections. These are two options you have for managing sets of data in C#.

The second section, on consuming data, discusses accessing databases using ADO.NET, the ADO.NET Entity Framework, and WCF Data Services. ADO.NET is a set of classes in the .NET Framework that enables you to connect to a database, retrieve data, execute stored procedures, add, update, and delete records. The ADO.NET Entity Framework is an object relational mapping tool that provides a graphical user interface that generates the code for you to perform the operations against a database using ADO.NET. WCF Data Services is a feature in .NET that exposes an ADO.NET Entity Framework model so that it can be accessed over the web or an intranet.

The third section reviews I/O operations and the many choices available for ...