Chapter 15. Working with Databases

IN THIS CHAPTER

• Creating Tables and Relationships

• Working with SQL Statements

• Using Database Projects

• Creating Database Objects in Managed Code

• Binding Controls to Data

This chapter is all about how you can manage databases and build data-aware applications using Visual Studio 2005 and SQL Server.

Five different Visual Studio tools allow you to interact with a database and assist with building applications that leverage data from a database:

• Solution Explorer

• Server Explorer

• Database Diagram Designer

• Table Designer

• Query and View Designer

Collectively, they are referred to as the Visual Database tools. We introduced a few of these tools earlier in Chapter 5, "Browsers and Explorers." Now we have the opportunity to explore how developers can use these tools together to create database solutions.

We'll start by examining how to build databases and database objects with the visual database tools. From there, we can cover the specifics of creating data-aware applications with data-bound controls.