Skip to Content
Programming Visual Basic .NET
book

Programming Visual Basic .NET

by Dave Grundgeiger
December 2001
Beginner
464 pages
13h 51m
English
O'Reilly Media, Inc.
Content preview from Programming Visual Basic .NET

Chapter 8.  ADO.NET: Developing Database Applications

Many software applications benefit from storing their data in database management systems. A database management system is a software component that performs the task of storing and retrieving large amounts of data. Examples of database management systems are Microsoft SQL Server and Oracle Corporation’s Oracle.

Note

Microsoft SQL Server and Microsoft Access both include a sample database called Northwind. The Northwind database is used in the examples throughout this chapter.

All examples in this chapter assume that the following declaration appears in the same file as the code:

Imports System.Data

Examples that use SQL Server also assume this declaration:

Imports System.Data.SqlClient

and examples that use Access assume this declaration:

Imports System.Data.OleDb

A Brief History of Universal Data Access

Database management systems provide APIs that allow application programmers to create and access databases. The set of APIs that each manufacturer’s system supplies is unique to that manufacturer. Microsoft has long recognized that it is inefficient and error prone for an applications programmer to attempt to master and use all the APIs for the various available database management systems. What’s more, if a new database management system is released, an existing application can’t make use of it without being rewritten to understand the new APIs. What is needed is a common database API.

Microsoft’s previous steps in this direction ...

Become an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
and much more.

Read now

Unlock full access

More than 5,000 organizations count on O’Reilly

AirBnbBlueOriginElectronic ArtsHomeDepotNasdaqRakutenTata Consultancy Services

QuotationMarkO’Reilly covers everything we've got, with content to help us build a world-class technology community, upgrade the capabilities and competencies of our teams, and improve overall team performance as well as their engagement.
Julian F.
Head of Cybersecurity
QuotationMarkI wanted to learn C and C++, but it didn't click for me until I picked up an O'Reilly book. When I went on the O’Reilly platform, I was astonished to find all the books there, plus live events and sandboxes so you could play around with the technology.
Addison B.
Field Engineer
QuotationMarkI’ve been on the O’Reilly platform for more than eight years. I use a couple of learning platforms, but I'm on O'Reilly more than anybody else. When you're there, you start learning. I'm never disappointed.
Amir M.
Data Platform Tech Lead
QuotationMarkI'm always learning. So when I got on to O'Reilly, I was like a kid in a candy store. There are playlists. There are answers. There's on-demand training. It's worth its weight in gold, in terms of what it allows me to do.
Mark W.
Embedded Software Engineer

You might also like

Learning Visual Basic .NET

Learning Visual Basic .NET

Jesse Liberty

Publisher Resources

ISBN: 0596000936Catalog PageErrata