| You've been rapidly learning different methods of data access. Now that you have a strong foundation, it's time to move to a more advanced level. Today's lesson will focus on more complex techniques than the ones you've been using up till now. You'll examine new database and XML I/O techniques that will help you develop master-level applications. First, you'll look at a few new ways to retrieve data by using parameters and stored procedures. Parameters allow you to create your queries more efficiently. Stored procedures are prebuilt SQL statements that provide many benefits to your application, including speed and readability. You'll also learn how to use transactions to ensure that SQL commands are executed properly. Next, you'll learn more about XML. Today's lesson will introduce the XmlNavigator object, which can be used to read an XML file, similar to the XmlDocument object. With this new object, you'll be able to use XPath queries and XSL transforms. The former is a query language used with XML (like SQL is to databases), and the latter allows you to transform XML files into other types of structured documents, such as HTML files. An important part of becoming an expert in ASP.NET is learning many different ways to do one thing. After today's lesson, you'll know several different ways to access data from both databases and XML files. Today's lesson will cover the following: What a parameterized query is and how to use it What stored procedures are and how to use them How to use transactions Another way to read XML documents How to query XML files How to transform XML files | 
