This document provides steps to create a simple web form application in Visual Studio that connects to a SQL database and retrieves data from a table to display on an ASP.NET web page. It describes how to create a database and table, get the connection string, write C# code behind to connect and execute a command to retrieve data from the table, and render the results on the web page.

2. Right click on add new item

3. Choose Database

4. Make a SQL database named “MyDatabase.mdf”

6. You should see your database “MyDatabase.mdf”

8. Right click on Tables and Add new table

10. Enter a field name “my_int” and make it type int – make the int an identity field so that it can auto increment and server as a key

14. Enter a string in the 'my_varchar' field

15. You won't need to, nor be allowed to enter data into the my_int field if you set it up as identity because it will auto fill

17. Click on properties

18. See connection string in lower left properties

20. See next slide for what it should look like when you put it in the code

21. Connect String You need to modify the connect string that you extract from the properties of the Database so that the compiler will accept it. Here is a sample connect string: Data Source=.SQLEXPRESS; AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory| MyDatabase.mdf;Integrated Security=True;User Instance=True;

23. Right click on the website name and add new item

24. Add a web form names AdoTest.aspx

25. Indicate that it is using code behind

27. We'll code the database read and data rendering in the code behind

28. We'll put cod in Page_Load method

30. Create a Sql Connection using the string

31. Note the red squigly line under SqlConnection

33. Correct this error and remove the red line

35. To select the data we created in the database use this sql:

36. Select my_varchar,my_int from my_table

38. Open connections are like open pipes to the database – you will need to close it when you are done

41. See comments in code on the next slide as to how data is extracted form the reader

42. Extracting Data from a SqlDataReader When you extract data from a reader, you should be aware of the data type you are extracting and how it maps to the language (.net) data types

43. Code to iterate through a reader while (reader.Read()) { //my_varchar is varchar which maps to .net string so use GetString string name = reader.GetString(0); //my_int is int which maps to Int32 Int32 id = reader.GetInt32(1); //now that I have loaded the data into c# string I can output //here I'm using response.write to output directly to the //browser. //I concatenate the data with html to produce the 'layout' //I want Response.Write(name + &quot; &quot; + id + &quot;<br />&quot;); }

45. If you don't close the connection you will run into problems with the database – it will think you are still connected

47. This will force your code to compile and bring up a browser window with the response

48. To do this right click on the .aspx file in the solution explorer and choose to 'View in Broswer'

51. This table can be styled if needed