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Provider Functionality

In this section, we'll explore each of the provider components shown in Table 8.1 and look at their functionality at a high level by detailing the methods, properties, and events that are typically exposed by a provider.

Data Adapter

The data adapter is the bridge between the DataSet and the data store and, as such, is the most important component for providers that want to implement the disconnected programming model for which ADO.NET was primarily built. In fact, vendors who want to create the simplest provider possible can simply implement (inherit from) the IDataAdapter interface or derive from the DataAdapter class.

You'll notice that several different base classes and interfaces are shown in Figure 8.1. DataAdapter ...