View Products - Populate Dataset through Oracle Provider for OLEDB

Table of Contents 

Overview of the Sample Application 
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This .NET sample application aims at demonstrating how to populate a DataSet through Oracle Provider for OLE DB . The Oracle9i Release 2 OLE DB provider introduces full support for .NET via the Microsoft OLE DB .NET data provider. With OLE DB .NET, applications can access the Oracle database from any .NET programming language. OLEDB .NET Data Provider provides a collection of classes that are used to  access database.  Figure 1.1, describes how the data is accessed using OLEDB .NET Provider. 


                                                            Figure 1.1 Data Access Using OLEDB .NET  Provider

DataSet is a major component of ADO .NET. It is an in-memory cache of the data retrieved from the database. OleDbDataAdapter  represents a set of data commands and a database connection that are used to fill the Dataset based on the query given.  OleDbCommand represents SQL statements to execute against datasource. OleDBConnection is used to build the database connection. 

This sample application is a Visual C# application that displays a product catalog for a product store. When this sample is run, a list of products from database appears in a DataGrid (in tabular format). The DataGrid gets populated from a DataSet which is filled by a DataSource using OleDbDataAdapter. Hence demonstrating how to populate DataSet through Oracle Provider for OLEDB.

User Notes with Screen Shots
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When this sample application is run, a list of Products from database is displayed as shown in figure 1.2, 
On clicking the 'Close' button, the application gets closed. 

                                            Figure 1.2 Screen Shot for DataSet Populate Sample 

Required Software 
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1. Visual C# installed with MS Development Environment 7.0 version (MS Visual Studio .NET)  including MS .NET Framework 1.0 version

2. Oracle8i Database or later running SQL*Net TCP/IP listener (can be downloaded here )

3. Oracle Provider for OLE DB (can be downloaded here)


Extracting the Sample
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Unzip DSPopulate.zip using Winzip or command utility to your convenient directory. Extraction of the zip file results 
in the creation of 'DSPopulate' directory.  Refer Description of Sample Files section for more details.
 

Database Setup 
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Connect to your database as any user and run the script DSPopulate\setup\DatabaseSetup.sql at the 
SQL prompt
SQL> @<your directory structure>\DSPopulate\setup\DatabaseSetup.sql

This creates a user "OraNet" with password "OraNet". All the database objects required by the application
are created and populated with sample data.

Following is the list of database objects that get created by running DatabaseSetup.sql file. 
Object Name Description
Products Table that store information about products.
Printmedia Table that stores information about the advertisement related to products.
Prodid_seq Sequence for auto generating Product IDs.
Adid_seq Sequence for auto generating Advertisement ID.
Populate_AdID Trigger for populating  Ad_ID column of 'PrintMedia'  table on insertion.
PopulateProduct_ID Trigger for populating value of Product_ID field from Adid_seq sequence, on insertion. 

Preparing and Running the Sample
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1. Ensure that the Database setup has been completed. 

2. Open DSPopulate.sln using Visual Studio .NET from <your-directory-structure>\DSPopulate folder. 

3. Edit ConnectionParams.cs file to change the database connection parameters i.e. TNSName for  database 
you want to use . Save this file. 

4. Ensure that the following .NET Component References have been added to DSPopulate project:
           System, 
           System.Data, 
           System.Drawing, 
           System.Windows.Forms, 
           System.XML. 

To add the above .NET Components 
     a)Go to Menu ->View-> Solution Explorer.
     b)Right click on DSPopulate project, choose 'Add Reference'.
     c)Choose the above .NET Components from the list displayed.
     d)Click 'Select', then OK.
     e) The chosen .NET component gets added to the project.

5. Build and run the sample. 

Description of Sample Files 
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Directory File Name Description
DSPopulate\doc Readme.html This file
blaf.css This is a cascading stylesheet applied to Readme.html
DSPopulate\doc\images This folder contains images used in the Readme.html file
DSPopulate\src DSPopulate.sln Microsoft Visual Studio Solution
  DSPopulate.suo Solution User option (this file gets automatically generated when a Visual Studio Solution is created)
DSPopulate\src ConnectionParams.cs This C# file contains parameters for database connection
ViewProducts.cs This C# file contains source code for UI for this sample application and its functionality
DSPopulate.csproj C# project file
DSPopulate.csproj.user Visual Studio Project User Options (this file gets automatically generated when a Visual Studio Project is created).
ViewProducts.resx .NET XML Resource Template (this file gets automatically generated when a Visual Studio Project is created)
DSPopulate\setup DatabaseSetup.sql This is a SQL script file 

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