Are the table relationships recognized from SQL Server when I link Visual Studio to my SQL Server Dataset?

Question

User-1546303928 posted

Hi,

As you can probably tell, I'm brand new to Visual Studio and SQL Server Datasets. I am creating a SQL Server db with about 7 tables and their applicable relationships. I want to create the user forms in VB.NET with Visual Studio. When I connect VS to my SQL Server database, are the relationships recognized by VS or do I have to use the GUI in VS to reestablish them?

Thank you,

- Justin

Answer 1

User753101303 posted

Hi,

What you are doing is not crystal clear. If using https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/dotnet/framework/data/adonet/dataset-datatable-dataview/typed-datasets it is outdated. Try "Entity Frramework" (EF) instead or another "ORM" product (whose purpose is to expose db data as .NET objects).

Answer 2

User1724605321 posted

Hi Justair07,

You can use Entity Framework Database First :

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/ef6/modeling/designer/workflows/database-first 

Database First allows you to reverse engineer a model from an existing database. The model is stored in an EDMX file (.edmx extension) and can be viewed and edited in the Entity Framework Designer and shows the relationship .

Best Regards,

Nan Yu

Answer 3

User-1546303928 posted

PatriceSc and Nan Yu,

Thank you both for the reply. As you can probably tell from my question, I'm embarking on a new journey by making by first non-access db.

Patrice, you are correct, from my research (which I can now see was outdated) I planned to use typed datasets in my project.

Nan Yu,

You link was awesome. I'm going to do some research/training on Entity Framework Designer before I begin. I'll start with the video in the link :)

So correct me if I'm wrong, by using EFD in my project I won't need stuff like:

Imports System.Data.SqlClient

Module MyFirstProject
 Public str As String
 Public con As New SqlConnection(str)
 Public cmd As SqlCommand
 Public da As SqlDataAdapter
 Public ds As DataSet
 Public bs As BindingSource
 Public qry As String

 Public Function GetConString() As String
  Return "Data Source=MyFirstProject\SQLEXPRESS;" &
         "Initial Catalog=Projects;" &
         "Integrated Security=True;" &
         "MultipleActiveResultSets=True"
 End Function

Also, what about moving my DB location? I plan to develop my DB in SQL Express on my personal PC but then I need to move it to a LAN Server after testing and project completion.

Thanks again,

- Justin