Question

Can Visual Studio natively connect to a MySQL database or do I need to install a 3rd party connector first? Could someone please provide a small code example either way? I can’t seem to make this work.

Answer 1

Can Visual Studio natively connect to
a MySQL database?

Based upon my knowledge, no.

Do I need to install a 3rd party
connector first?

Yes, MySQL has their own .NET Connector.

Could someone please provide a small
code example either way? I can’t seem
to make this work.

Here is the link to the MySQL Connector documentation..

In there, I found this example:

Imports System.Data

Imports MySql.Data
Imports MySql.Data.MySqlClient

Public Class Tutorial1
    Public Shared Sub Main()
        Dim connStr As String = "server=localhost;user=root;database=world;port=3306;password=******;"
        Dim conn As New MySqlConnection(connStr)
        Try
            Console.WriteLine("Connecting to MySQL...")
            conn.Open()
        Catch ex As Exception
            Console.WriteLine(ex.ToString())
        End Try
        conn.Close()
        Console.WriteLine("Done.")
    End Sub
End Class