Chapter 10

Introduction to Data and Databases

What you will learn in this chapter:

• What a database is
• What tools WebMatrix provides for working with data
• What SQL is and how to use it
• How relationships work within databases
• How to use the Database Helper

Up to this point, most of the data you have worked with has been stored temporarily in variables within your C# code. You have persisted (saved) some data to text files, such as the exception logging that you created in the last chapter, and you have generated data that resides in e-mails in a number of exercises. You also created folders containing image data in Chapter 8. Data has so far come in many different forms, but none of it very structured or organized. As your site grows and the number of users increases, you will gather more and more data. You will need to be able to store this permanently, and you will need to be able to query it, display it, change it, and even remove it.