Database connectivity and ADO. NET

Database Connectivity and ADO. NET

Database connectivity is the process of establishing a connection between a C# application and a database management system (DBMS) such as Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, or Oracle. This connection allows the application to interact with the data stored in the database, such as retrieving or updating records.

ADO.NET (ActiveX Data Objects for .NET) is a set of libraries in the .NET Framework that provide a way to access data from a variety of data sources, including relational databases, XML documents, and flat files. ADO.NET provides a consistent interface for accessing data, regardless of the data source, and includes classes for connecting to a database, executing SQL commands, and retrieving and manipulating data.

To establish a database connection in C# using ADO.NET, you first create a connection object, which contains the necessary information to connect to the database, such as the database server name, user ID, and password. You then open the connection and use a command object to execute SQL commands, such as SELECT, INSERT, UPDATE, and DELETE, to interact with the data in the database. Finally, you close the connection to release any resources used by the connection.

ADO.NET also provides a set of data adapter classes that can be used to retrieve data from the database and populate a dataset, which is an in-memory representation of the data. This allows you to work with the data in a disconnected mode, which can improve performance and scalability of the application. You can also use the dataset to update the data in the database, by calling the Update method of the data adapter.