Implementing OOP to Develop Database

Oriented Applications using VB.NET 2005

(Page 1 of 6 )

This article explains how to implement object oriented programming to develop database
oriented applications using VB.NET 2005. I took the simplest approach to develop this
application.

A downloadable zip file is available for this article.

I am dividing this tutorial into two parts. Part one, which is this article, contains the full source
code for developing the application. Part two will contain the full explanation for the source
code.
I have already contributed several articles on developing Data Access Layers, Object Oriented
Database Development, implementing COM+, working with Enterprise Application Blocks,
Windows Services, and so forth on this web site. If you are new to any of those, I suggest
you go through my articles at http://www.aspfree.com/cp/bio/Jagadish-Chatarji.
In this article, I thought I would concentrate on OOP rather than data access. Since I have
already contributed several articles covering best practices with data access, I don’t want to
cover all of them again here. The source code that I developed for this tutorial is purposely made
simple. Please note that there are better, even excellent, ways to handle databases from within
your application.
Setting up the environment for this contribution
Before we begin, create a new Windows forms application, add an “app.config” file and modify
the same in such a way that it looks something like the following:
< <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
<system.diagnostics>
.
.
.
.
</system.diagnostics>
<connectionStrings>
<add name="SampleDB" connectionString="Data Source=.;initial
catalog=sample;user id=sa"/>
</connectionStrings>
</configuration>
Since I wanted to demonstrate stored procedures which do not handle existing data in
AdventureWorks, I created a table “emp” in a database called “sample,” with the following
columns and data types:
• Empno (int)
• Ename (nvarchar(50))
• Sal (float)
• Deptno (int)
I pushed the following sample rows into that table:

Implementing OOP to Develop Database

Oriented Applications using VB.NET 2005 -
Developing a class which holds an entire row
in a table
(Page 2 of 6 )

Every row in a table (especially for lookup tables) must be available in the form of an object,
according to the OOP concept. To hold these types of objects, we need to have a collection class
to store all those objects.
Before creating the collection class, let us go through the main class which can hold a row of
data. The following is the class which holds employee-related information.
PublicClass Employee
Private _empno As Integer
Private _ename As String
Private _sal As Double
Private _deptno As Integer
Public Property Empno() As Integer
Get
 Return _empno
End Get
Set(ByVal value As Integer)
If _empno < 0 Then
Throw New Exception("Invalid empno")
End If
_empno = value
End Set
End Property
Public Property Ename() As String
Get
Return _ename
End Get
Set(ByVal value As String)
_ename = value.ToUpper
End Set
End Property
Public Property Sal() As Double
Get
Return _sal
End Get
Set(ByVal value As Double)
If _sal < 0 Then
Throw New Exception("Invalid salary")
End If
_sal = value
End Set
End Property
Public Property Deptno() As Integer
Get
Return _deptno
End Get
Set(ByVal value As Integer)
If _deptno < 0 Then
Throw New Exception("Invalid deptno")
End If
_deptno = value
End Set
End Property
EndClass
For convenience, I even added few constructors (as follows) to the above class:
PublicSub New()
End Sub
Public Sub New(ByVal empno As Integer, ByVal ename As String, ByVal sal As
Double, ByVal deptno As Integer)
_empno = empno
_ename = ename
_sal = sal
_deptno = deptno
End Sub
Public Sub New(ByVal e As Employee)
_empno = e.Empno
_ename = e.Ename
_sal = e.Sal
_deptno = e.Deptno
End Sub

Implementing OOP to Develop Database

Oriented Applications using VB.NET 2005 -
Developing a class which holds a set of rows
belonging to the same table
(Page 3 of 6 )

In the previous section, we saw a class which can store a whole row of information. If we have
multiple rows to handle, we need to store them in the form of a collection. The following is the
class that can hold multiple objects belonging to the same type:
ImportsSystem.Collections
PublicClass Employees
Inherits CollectionBase
Public Sub add(ByVal e As Employee)
List.Add(e)
End Sub
 Public Sub delete(ByVal e As Employee)
List.Remove(e)
End Sub
Public Sub delete(ByVal index As Integer)
If index < 0 Or index > List.Count - 1 Then
Throw New Exception("Invalid index to remove")
End If
List.RemoveAt(index)
End Sub
Default Public Overridable ReadOnly Property Item(ByVal index As Integer)
As Employee
Get
Return CType(Me.List(index), Employee)
End Get
End Property
Public ReadOnly Property Search(ByVal Empno As Integer) As Employee
Get
For Each e As Employee In Me.List
If e.Empno = Empno Then Return e
Next
Return Nothing
End Get
End Property
EndClass

Implementing OOP to Develop Database

Oriented Applications using VB.NET 2005 -
Developing a factory class to update rows to
the database
(Page 4 of 6 )

Once we are provided with every object, we need to update them in the database whenever
necessary. The following is the class which tries to save the object in the database as needed:
PublicClass EmployeeFactory
Inherits Employee
Public Sub New()
End Sub
Public Sub New(ByVal e As Employee)
MyBase.New(e)
End Sub
Public Sub add()
DBHelper.SQLExecute("insert into emp(empno,ename,sal,deptno) values ("
& Empno & ",'" & Ename & "'," & Sal & "," & Deptno & ")")
End Sub
Public Sub add(ByVal e As Employee)
Empno = e.Empno
Ename = e.Ename
Sal = e.Sal
Deptno = e.Deptno
add()
End Sub
Public Sub update()
DBHelper.SQLExecute("update emp set ename='" & Ename & "',sal=" & Sal
& ",deptno=" & Deptno & " where empno=" & Empno)
End Sub
Public Sub update(ByVal e As Employee)
Empno = e.Empno
Ename = e.Ename
Sal = e.Sal
Deptno = e.Deptno
update()
End Sub
Public Sub delete()
DBHelper.SQLExecute("delete from emp where empno=" & Empno)
End Sub
Public Sub delete(ByVal empno As Integer)
Me.Empno = empno
delete()
End Sub
Public Function getEmployee(ByVal empno As Integer) As Employee
Dim dr As DataRow = DBHelper.getRow("select * from emp where empno="
& empno)
empno = dr("empno")
 Ename = dr("ename")
Sal = dr("sal")
Deptno = dr("deptno")
Return CType(Me, Employee)
End Function
Public Shared Function getList() As Employees
Dim dt As DataTable = DBHelper.getDataTable("select * from emp")
Dim colEmp As New Employees
For Each dr As DataRow In dt.Rows
colEmp.add(New Employee(dr("empno"), dr("ename"), dr("sal"),
dr("deptno")))
Next
Return colEmp
End Function
EndClass

Implementing OOP to Develop Database

Oriented Applications using VB.NET 2005 -
Developing a class to interact with databases
(Page 5 of 6 )

You can observe that the class in the previous section works with another class called
“DBHelper.” This class is mainly responsible for interacting with the database independently of
any type of object. The following is the code for the class:
ImportsSystem.Data.SqlClient
PublicClass DBHelper
Private Shared Function getConnectionString() As String
Return
System.Configuration.ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings
("SampleDB").ConnectionString
End Function
Public Shared Sub SQLExecute(ByVal strSQL As String)
Dim Conn As New SqlConnection(getConnectionString)
Dim cmd As New SqlCommand(strSQL, Conn)
With cmd
 .Connection.Open()
.ExecuteNonQuery()
.Connection.Close()
.Dispose()
End With
End Sub
Public Shared Function getRow(ByVal strSELECT As String) As
DataRow
Dim da As New SqlDataAdapter(strSELECT,
getConnectionString)
Dim dt As New DataTable
da.Fill(dt)
da.Dispose()
If dt.Rows.Count = 0 Then Return Nothing Else Return
dt.Rows(0) 'return only first row
End Function
Public Shared Function getDataTable(ByVal strSELECT As
String) As DataTable
Dim Conn As New SqlConnection(getConnectionString)
Dim da As New SqlDataAdapter(strSELECT, Conn)
Dim dt As New DataTable
da.Fill(dt)
da.Dispose()
Return dt
End Function
Public Shared Function getRowValue(ByVal strSELECT As String)
As String
Dim Conn As New SqlConnection(getConnectionString)
Dim cmd As New SqlCommand(strSELECT, Conn)
Dim value As String = ""
With cmd
.Connection.Open()
value = .ExecuteScalar() & "" 'concatenating an empty
string..to eliminate null or nothing
.Connection.Close()
.Dispose()
End With
Return value
End Function
EndClass
At this point, I didn’t include any mapping to stored procedures in the above class. It is a very
simple data access class with very few routines. For a better data access class, you can try to use
Microsoft Enterprise Library 2.0 with the above DBHelper class to make it more robust. If you
are new to that, I suggest you check out my other articles on that topic at
www.aspfree.com/cp/bio/Jagadish-Chatarji.

Implementing OOP to Develop Database

Oriented Applications using VB.NET 2005 -
Developing the application
(Page 6 of 6 )

Once you have developed all the core classes, the only part left is the presentation. The
presentation is as simple as the following:
PublicClass Form1
Dim clnEmp As New Employees
Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click
Me.DataGridView1.DataSource = EmployeeFactory.getList()
End Sub
Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click
Dim ef As New EmployeeFactory
ef.add(New Employee(2001, "aaa", 4500, 20))
End Sub
Private Sub Button3_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As
System.EventArgs) Handles Button3.Click
Dim ef As New EmployeeFactory
ef.delete(2001)
End Sub
EndClass
The explanation for all of the code will be part of an upcoming article. Please check back
frequently or sign up for a newsletter.
The entire source code for this article is available in the form of a downloadable zip. The
solution was developed using Microsoft Visual Studio 2005 Professional Edition on Microsoft
Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition together with Microsoft SQL Server 2005 Developer
Edition. I didn’t really test the solution with any other/previous editions. But I believe that the
above code must execute even in .NET Framework 1.1. If you have any problems with
executing the solution, please post in the discussion area.
Any feedback, suggestions, bugs, errors, improvements etc., are highly appreciated at
jag_chat@yahoo.com.