Question

I have information entered into a text box on an ASP.net 3.5 page. when i click the submit button i would like this information written to a sql server database.

Can someone please tell me what I need to do to accomplish this. The end-user should not see anything.

I am using visual web developer 2008. the event handling code is placed in a separate file using vb.

Thank you.

Answer 1

There are lots of different ways to accomplish this: Dynamic Data, LinqToSQL, Typed data sets, Data Access Application Block, or another ORM. My preferred method is direct sql, which would use code something like this:

Public Sub SaveAnswer(ByVal answer As String)
    Dim sql As String = "INSERT INTO [table1] (ans) VALUES (@Answer)"

    Using cn As New SqlConnection(getConnectionString()), _
          cmd As New SqlCommand(sql)

        cmd.Parameters.Add("@Answer", SqlDbType.VarChar, 50).Value = answer

        cn.Open()
        cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
    End Using
End Sub

Private Function getConnectionString() As String
    ''//normally read from a config file for this

    Return "Server=(local)\SQLEXPRESS;Database=testdb;Trusted_Connection=True;"
End Function

A few things to take from this sample:

• It properly closes the db connection, even if an exception is thrown, via the Using block
• Parameterized query to prevent sql injection
• getConnectionString() is private. You should abstract out your data access to a separate class or assembly, and this is one way to start enforcing that.