Introduction

A database is an organized collection of data. Many strategies exist for organizing data to facilitate easy access and manipulation. A database management system (DBMS) provides mechanisms for storing, organizing, retrieving and modifying data for many users. Database management systems allow access to and storage of data independently of the internal representation of the data.

Today's most popular database systems are relational databases. A language called SQLpronounced "sequel," or as its individual lettersis the international standard language used almost universally with relational databases to perform queries (i.e., to request information that satisfies given criteria) and to manipulate data. In this book, we pronounce SQL as "sequel."

Some popular relational database management systems (RDBMS) are Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, Sybase, IBM DB2 and PostgreSQL. We provide URLs for these systems in Section 20.11, Web Resources. MySQL (www.mysql.com) is an increasingly popular open-source RDBMS that can be downloaded and used freely by non-commercial users. You may also be familiar with Microsoft Accessa relational database system that is part of Microsoft Office. In this chapter, we use Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Expressa free version of SQL Server 2005 that is installed when you install Visual C# 2005. We will refer to SQL Server 2005 Express simply as SQL Server from this point forward.

A programming language connects to and interacts with a relational database via a database interfacesoftware that facilitates communication between a database management system and a program. C# programs communicate with databases and manipulate their data through ADO.NET. The current version of ADO.NET is 2.0. Section 20.5 presents an overview of ADO.NET's object model and the relevant namespaces and classes that allow you to work with databases in C#. However, as you will learn in subsequent sections, most of the work required to communicate with a database using ADO.NET 2.0 is performed by the IDE itself. You will work primarily with the IDE's visual programming tools and wizards, which simplify the process of connecting to and manipulating a database. Throughout this chapter, we refer to ADO.NET 2.0 simply as ADO.NET.

This chapter introduces general concepts of relational databases and SQL, then explores ADO.NET and the IDE's tools for accessing data sources. The examples in Sections 20.620.9 demonstrate how to build applications that use databases to store information. In the next two chapters, you will see other practical database applications. Chapter 21, ASP.NET 2.0, Web Forms and Web Controls, presents a Web-based bookstore case study that retrieves user and book information from a database. Chapter 22, Web Services, uses a database to store airline reservation data for a Web service (i.e., a software component that can be accessed remotely over a network).

Preface

Index

    Introduction to Computers, the Internet and Visual C#

    Introduction to the Visual C# 2005 Express Edition IDE

    Introduction to C# Applications

    Introduction to Classes and Objects

    Control Statements: Part 1

    Control Statements: Part 2

    Methods: A Deeper Look

    Arrays

    Classes and Objects: A Deeper Look

    Object-Oriented Programming: Inheritance

    Polymorphism, Interfaces & Operator Overloading

    Exception Handling

    Graphical User Interface Concepts: Part 1

    Graphical User Interface Concepts: Part 2

    Multithreading

    Strings, Characters and Regular Expressions

    Graphics and Multimedia

    Files and Streams

    Extensible Markup Language (XML)

    Database, SQL and ADO.NET

    ASP.NET 2.0, Web Forms and Web Controls

    Web Services

    Networking: Streams-Based Sockets and Datagrams

    Searching and Sorting

    Data Structures

    Generics

    Collections

    Appendix A. Operator Precedence Chart

    Appendix B. Number Systems

    Appendix C. Using the Visual Studio 2005 Debugger

    Appendix D. ASCII Character Set

    Appendix E. Unicode®

    Appendix F. Introduction to XHTML: Part 1

    Appendix G. Introduction to XHTML: Part 2

    Appendix H. HTML/XHTML Special Characters

    Appendix I. HTML/XHTML Colors

    Appendix J. ATM Case Study Code

    Appendix K. UML 2: Additional Diagram Types

    Appendix L. Simple Types

    Index



    Visual C# How to Program
    Visual C# 2005 How to Program (2nd Edition)
    ISBN: 0131525239
    EAN: 2147483647
    Year: 2004
    Pages: 600

    Flylib.com © 2008-2020.
    If you may any questions please contact us: flylib@qtcs.net