ASP.NET & Databases : Part 2
Published 10/17/01
Introduction
Welcome to Part 2 of our series into ASP.NET & Databases (that should really
be data sources). In this part we're going to talk about the dataset object.
The dataset object is huge and we are not going to cover all of it.
We'll be talking about DataTables, DataRows and all that.
We're
going to be using the page that we created in Part 1, that page opened a
database and filled a dataset with data.
What
is a DataSet?
Looking back on Classic ASP, we see that the no. 1 thing to store data in from
a database is a recordset. A recordset could hold one table of data and was
fairly flexible.
The dataset combines VB.NET's language and an updated version of the recordset
to provide you with much more functionality and flexibility and it can hold
many tables of data.
A
DataSet is broken down to things like DataRows and DataTables, you can use
these to create a dataset without a connection to an external data source.
Also, a dataset is disconnected data, that means that its not connected to the
database, all the data can be used when its offline and the dataset only needs
the connection to update the data. Let's take a closer look at it.
For
this Part I'll be taking you through the different objects that make up the
DataSet.
