Question

I’m somewhat new to C# – I have a connection string set in my app web.config called “ApplicationServices” Using C#, how can I write a certain SQL command that retrieves data from my database and set’s it to a string that I can operate on?

Answer 1

Here is the full explanation.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/system.data.sqlclient.sqlcommand.aspx

//Taken from MSDN
private static void ReadOrderData(string connectionString)
{
    string queryString =
        "SELECT OrderID, CustomerID FROM dbo.Orders;";
    using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(
               connectionString))
    {
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(
            queryString, connection);
        connection.Open();
        SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();
        try
        {
            while (reader.Read())
            {
                Console.WriteLine(String.Format("{0}, {1}",
                    reader[0], reader[1]));
            }
        }
        finally
        {
            // Always call Close when done reading.
            reader.Close();
        }
    }
}

You can also use an ORM such as LINQ2SQL
http://codesamplez.com/database/linq-to-sql-c-sharp-tutorial

EDIT:

How to debug…

Below are some links on how to use the debugging features in visual studio.

http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms165053.aspx
http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/k0k771bt(v=vs.71).aspx
http://www.dotnetperls.com/debugging