Programming ASP.NET, Second Edition

Getting Started with ADO.NET

In the coming examples, you’ll create a more complex display with a DataGrid, and you’ll display data from multiple tables, but to get started, you’ll keep it as simple as possible. In this first example, you’ll create a simple Web Form with a single list box called lbBugs. You’ll populate this list box with bits of information from the Bugs table in the ProgASPDotNetBugs database.

Create a new C# ASP.NET web application project named SimpleBugListBox. Drag a list box onto the form and name it lbBugs (that is, change the value of its ID property to lbBugs). The list box will size itself to fit the data, so you can leave its default size for now.

Example 11-2 is the complete C# source for the code-behind page; code lines that are not generated by Visual Studio automatically are shown in boldface. Analysis follows the listing.

Example 11-2. A simple ADO.NET example

using System;
using System.Collections;
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient; using System.Drawing; using System.Web; using System.Web.SessionState; using System.Web.UI; using System.Web.UI.WebControls; using System.Web.UI.HtmlControls; namespace SimpleBugsListBox { /// <summary> /// Summary description for WebForm1. /// </summary> public class WebForm1 : System.Web.UI.Page { protected System.Web.UI.WebControls.ListBox lbBugs; public WebForm1( ) { Page.Init += new System.EventHandler(Page_Init); } private void Page_Load(object sender, System.EventArgs e) { ...