A large majority of existing and even new Windows applications are built to access a database. If you're building that kind of application (and chances are very good that you are), you'll need to know how .NET supports access to relational data providers as well as how that support is integrated into VS.NET for ease of development of your WinForms applications. Of course, accessing databases is a huge undertaking that can't be covered completely in anything less than an entire book (at least). This chapter introduces only the basics of ADO.NET, the part of the .NET Framework responsible for providing access to the myriad of data providers. For example, although I use this chapter to explore data sets and explain how they're used in WinForms applications, I don't cover data readers at all. The data reader can be useful, but it doesn't support WinForms data binding, a popular thing to do in WinForms (and the subject of Chapter 13: Data Binding and Data Grids). This chapter, and the chapter that follows , give you a running start on ADO.NET, but for the complete story, including all the sordid details, you really need another book. [1]
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