Who This Book Is For
This book is aimed at intermediate or experienced programmers who have started on their journey
toward ASP.NET development and who are already familiar with relational databases such as SQL
Server. While readers won’t be introduced to many new ASP.NET 2.0 concepts in Chapter 1, this book is
not intended to be a first port of call for the developer looking at ASP.NET, since there are already many
books and articles covering this area. Instead, this book cuts straight to the heart of accessing data from
within ASP.NET web applications. To get the most out of the book, you should have some basic knowledge
of C#. All the code examples will be explained in C#.
In a similar vein, there are many books and articles that cover in depth the data access technologies that
you will need to use this book. General knowledge of ADO.NET and XML, and a basic understanding of
relational databases are assumed.
What This Book Covers
This book explores the array of ADO.NET 2.0 features and how they can be used in ASP.NET for developing
web applications. Data access is a key component of .NET Framework and is present everywhere
in the .NET Framework, from data source controls to data bound controls that consume data all the way
from objects to relational data stores. In the first part of this book, you’ll find in-depth coverage of the
data source controls that enable data binding in the ASP.NET platform. Data source controls, data bound
controls, and caching support built in to the data source controls are discussed with ASP.NET samples
and reference information. Next, the book moves on to advanced features such as site navigation, implementing
sorting and paging, and displaying and editing data in templates.
The final part of this book focuses on transactions in ADO.NET 2.0, advanced ADO.NET features for data
display, and SQL Server 2005 XML features. You’ll also find a couple of case studies on the use of data
source and data bound controls in ASP.NET and XML features that provide you with a real-life example
on how to leverage these features.