VISUAL BASIC 2010 EXPRESS & SQL SERVER 2008 EXPRESS

VISUAL BASIC 2010 EXPRESS & SQL SERVER 2008 EXPRESS

Two great tools that go great together 

VB.Net and SQL Server are powerful, industry-standard development tools from Microsoft.  It’s sometimes surprising to realize that anyone can download and use these programs for free.

Getting them installed and working together took longer than I expected.  Google searches showed that many people were even questioning whether a VB Express program could could access a SQL Server Express database.  It can, but there’s a trick to it.

So if you’re trying to get started with your first VB+SQL program, here’s a small app to start you off.  I hope it saves you a couple hours!

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First, download and install Visual Basic 2010 Express and Sql Server 2008 Express from www.microsoft.com/express. 

SQL Server

Next, start Sql Server Management Studio, and log in.

 (Start à All Programs à Microsoft SQL Server 2008 à SQL Server 2008)

Create a new database by right-clicking Databases and selecting New Database

Name the new database MyTestDB and click OK.

Expand the Databases folder to find your new database:

Click New Query and run this script to create an empty table named tblTest:

CREATE TABLE [MyTestDB].[dbo].[tblTest] (

   [tstNum_PK] [int] IDENTITY(1,1) NOT NULL ,

   [tstData] [varchar] (100) NOT NULL

) ON [PRIMARY]

Visual Basic 

Now start Visual Basic and create a new Windows Form Application named DatabaseTest. 

(Start à All Programs à Microsoft Visual Studio 2010 Express à Visual Basic 2010)

On your VB Form, add two TextBoxes and two Buttons.  For simplicity, we’ll leave the their properties at their default settings and change them in the code.





à Here’s the trick: with Visual Basic 2010 Express, you have to connect directly to the database file.  You may be used to connecting to remote database servers – you can’t do that here.  When you created MyTestDB above, SQL Server created a file on your PC named MyTestDB.mdf.  Find it, and if the full path name is different from:

C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\MyTestDB.mdf

Then you’ll need to change two lines in this sample code to match your location.

Add the code below to your program.  Now you’re ready to run.

Start the program and type something into the first text box.  Then click Add to DB. 

Unless you see an error message, a new record was just written to your database.

To read and display all the records in this table, click Show DB.

The ‘1’ at the beginning is the Primary Key for your record – a field you generally want to include, but would rarely display.

That’s it.  If you got all the way through, you now have a working (though bare-bones) program to begin developing your own applications.  Good luck!

 

Imports System.Data.SqlClient 

Public Class Form1

   'at program startup, set the control properties

   Private Sub Form1_Load(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles MyBase.Load

      Button1.Text = "Add to DB"

      Button2.Text = "Show DB"

      TextBox2.Multiline = True

   End Sub 

   'write a record to the database table

   Private Sub Button1_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button1.Click

      Dim sqCon As New SqlClient.SqlConnection("Server=.\SQLExpress;AttachDbFilename=C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\MyTestDB.mdf;Database=MyTestDB; Trusted_Connection=Yes;")

      Dim sqCmd As New SqlClient.SqlCommand

      sqCmd.Connection = sqCon            'create the DB connection

      sqCmd.CommandText = "INSERT INTO [MyTestDB].[dbo].[tblTest] VALUES ('" & TextBox1.Text & "')"

      sqCon.Open()                        'open the connection

      sqCmd.ExecuteNonQuery()             'execute the SQL command

      sqCon.Close()                       'close the connection

   End Sub 

   'read and display all records from the database table

   Private Sub Button2_Click(ByVal sender As System.Object, ByVal e As System.EventArgs) Handles Button2.Click

      Dim sqCon As New SqlClient.SqlConnection("Server=.\SQLExpress;AttachDbFilename=C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\MSSQL10_50.SQLEXPRESS\MSSQL\DATA\MyTestDB.mdf;Database=MyTestDB; Trusted_Connection=Yes;")

      Dim sqCmd As New SqlClient.SqlCommand

      Dim sdrRow As SqlClient.SqlDataReader

      'define the DB connection and search string

      sqCmd.Connection = sqCon

      sqCmd.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM tblTest"

      'open the DB connection

      sqCon.Open()                        'open the DB connection

      sdrRow = sqCmd.ExecuteReader()      'read the entire table

      'extract and display each field

      TextBox2.Text = ""                  'clear the text box

      Do While sdrRow.Read()

         TextBox2.Text = TextBox2.Text & sdrRow.GetValue(0) & vbTab     'get the primary key

         TextBox2.Text = TextBox2.Text & sdrRow.GetValue(1) & vbCrLf    'get the string

      Loop

      'close up and return

      sdrRow.Close()

      sqCon.Close()

   End Sub

End Class