Visual Basic® .NET Database Programming

Entities

The main purpose of this application is to track customer orders, and the database probably needs some sort of entity to hold order information. For now, call this object the CustomerOrders entity. This object is called an entity rather than a table because it does not necessarily represent an actual database table. Entities can model patterns that do not work directly in a relational database, so design usually begins with them. At some point, all the data in the entities will map into database tables.

The CustomerOrders entity holds information on past and present orders. To print an invoice, this entity needs to contain all the information that should be part of the invoice. That information includes the following values:

• CustomerName ...