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A database connection is a facility in computer science that allows client software to talk to database server software, whether on the same machine or not. A connection is required to send commands and receive answers, usually in the form of a result set. Connections are a key concept in data-centric programming.
In computing, a connection string is a string that specifies information about a data source and the means of connecting to it. It is passed in code to an underlying driver or provider in order to initiate the connection. Whilst commonly used for a database connection, the data source could also be a spreadsheet or text file.
ADO.NET providers can be created to access such simple data stores as a text file and spreadsheet, through to such complex databases as Oracle Database, Microsoft SQL Server, MySQL, PostgreSQL, SQLite, IBM Db2, Sybase ASE, and many others. They can also provide access to hierarchical data stores such as email systems.
ADO allows a developer to write programs that access data without knowing how the database is implemented; developers must be aware of the database for connection only. No knowledge of SQL is required to access a database when using ADO, although one can use ADO to execute SQL commands directly (with the disadvantage of introducing a dependency ...
The Microsoft SQL Server Network Library, a proprietary access method specific to Microsoft SQL Server, is also included in the MDAC. Developers of Windows applications are encouraged to use ADO or ADO.NET for data access, the benefit being that users of the application program are not constrained in their choice of database architecture except ...
One example is the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server. As SQL Server database connections can be slow to create, a pool of connections is maintained. Closing a connection does not actually relinquish the link to SQL Server. Instead, the connection is held in a pool, from which it can be retrieved when requesting a new connection.
A DataReader parses a Tabular Data Stream from Microsoft SQL Server, and other methods of retrieving data from other sources. A DataReader is usually accompanied by a Command object that contains the query, optionally any parameters, and the connection object to run the query on.
The LINQ to SQL provider allows LINQ to be used to query Microsoft SQL Server databases, including SQL Server Compact databases. Since SQL Server data may reside on a remote server, and because SQL Server has its own query engine, LINQ to SQL does not use the query engine of LINQ. Instead, it converts a LINQ query to a SQL query that is then ...