Visual Basic® .NET Power Coding

Filling a DataSet Object with an Adapter

The disconnected nature of ADO.NET translates to literal code behavior. The DataSet object in ADO.NET replaces the Recordset object in ADO as the central object for managing data. The literal difference vis-à-vis disconnectedness is that the DataSet object uses a connection (and an adapter) to get data but can work independently of the connection and adapter in your application. The only time the DataSet object needs the connection and adapter is when you are actually reading from or writing to the database. The rest of the time the DataSet object acts independently; think of a DataSet as a small subset of your database copied to the client.

DataSet objects are repositories for holding and managing data; ...