Summary

This chapter addressed all the important topics regarding working with data within the three fundamental .NET data access objects “ the DataReader , the DataTable, and the DataSet objects. You've seen how you can extract data from a data store using complex SQL statements and different types of stored procedures. You've also seen how to build DataSet and DataTable objects from scratch using code, and then set a range of properties on each data column to accurately specify their behavior.

Then you saw how you can add, delete, edit, and completely remove rows in a table. We examined the various properties that indicate the state of each row and each column in that row, and saw how to cancel changes to a row, a table, and a complete DataSet object.

Finally, you looked at a couple of ways to filter and sort data “ in a DataTable object and in a DataView object.

Now that you are comfortable with the way that .NET data access works, as well as the fundamental objects, their common properties and methods , it's time to look at the final major relational data topic. How do you go about updating the original data in your database or other data store? This is the core topic of the next chapter.