ADO.NET

ADO.NET

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ADO.NET is a data access technology developed by Microsoft as part of its .NET framework. It provides a set of libraries and classes that enable developers to interact with various data sources, such as databases, XML files, and web services. ADO.NET offers a flexible and efficient way to access and manipulate data, making it a popular choice for building data-driven applications.

History

ADO.NET was first introduced with the release of the .NET framework in 2002. It was designed as a successor to the earlier ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) technology, which was widely used in Microsoft's previous development platforms, such as Visual Basic 6.0 and ASP. ADO.NET aimed to provide improved performance, scalability, and reliability compared to its predecessor.

Features

ADO.NET offers several key features that make it a powerful data access technology:

Data Providers

ADO.NET supports multiple data providers, including providers for popular databases such as Microsoft SQL Server, Oracle, and MySQL. Each data provider implements the common ADO.NET interfaces, allowing developers to write database-agnostic code. This flexibility enables applications to easily switch between different database systems without requiring significant code changes.

Connected and Disconnected Data Access

ADO.NET supports both connected and disconnected data access models. In the connected model, a connection to the data source is established, and data is accessed and manipulated directly. In the disconnected model, data is retrieved from the data source into a dataset, which is an in-memory representation of the data. The dataset can then be manipulated independently of the data source, and changes can be later synchronized back to the data source.

Data Binding

ADO.NET provides powerful data binding capabilities, allowing developers to easily bind data from a data source to user interface controls. This simplifies the process of displaying and editing data in applications, as changes made to the user interface are automatically reflected in the underlying data source, and vice versa.

Usage

ADO.NET is widely used in the development of various types of applications, including desktop, web, and mobile applications. It is particularly popular in enterprise-level applications that require efficient and reliable data access. ADO.NET can be used with different programming languages supported by the .NET framework, such as C# and Visual Basic.NET.

Categories

ADO.NET falls under the following categories:

Templates

The following templates are commonly used in ADO.NET-related articles:

See Also

• ADO.NET Entity Framework
• ADO.NET Data Services
• ADO.NET Data Provider for Oracle