Visual Studio Data : SQL Server Express

Debugging with Local Database File

Yang Cao — Fri, 31 Jul 2009 04:56:00 GMT

Most of the time, your business application needs to deal with data stored in a database. Sometimes the database is on a remote server, while sometimes it is a local database file (SQL Server Compact database file, SQL Server Express database file, or Microsoft Access database file).
One of the frequently asked questions about debugging an application that has a local database file is: “my update method executes successfully, why the database data is not updated?”

My data is not updated!

For example, my project has a SQL Server Compact database file (Northwind.sdf), and I add a dataset with Customer table data in my database file:

In Program.cs file, input following code to Main method:
            NorthwindDataSet ds = new NorthwindDataSet();
            NorthwindDataSetTableAdapters.CustomersTableAdapter ta = new ConsoleApplication1.NorthwindDataSetTableAdapters.CustomersTableAdapter();
            ta.Fill(ds.Customers);
            ds.Customers[0].Postal_Code = "11111";
            int result = ta.Update(ds);

Now if you hit F5 to debug this project and check the return value of Update method, the value is 1, which means one row was successfully updated. Now double click the Northwind.sdf file in Solution Explorer, and choose “Show Table Data” on Customers table:

You will notice that the Postal_Code is not updated at all!

What happened?

Let’s check the property of the local database file:

There’s a property “Copy to Output Directory” and the default value is “Copy if newer” (if you’re using .mdf or .mdb file, the default value is “Copy always”). You could check this MSDN document to learn what this property means. In short, the local database file will be copied to Output directory, and THAT database is the one that will get updated.

Let’s select “Show All Files” button on upper left corner of Solution Explorer, and navigate to bin/Debug folder. Now you could see the Northwind.sdf file in output directory:

If you double click on this file, Server Explorer will create a connection to this database file. “Show Table Data” now! You will see the Postal_Code of first customer is now "11111”.

What other options do I have?

If you don’t want Visual Studio to copy the database file for you, you could set the “Copy to Output Directory” property to “Do not copy”. Then it’s your choice when and how to overwrite the database file. Of course, you still need two copies of database file: at design time, you’re using the database file in solution directory, while at run time, you’re modifying the one in output directory.

If you want to get rid of this “two-copy-confusion” and want both design time and run time using the same copy of database file, you should select No when IDE offers to “copy the file to your project and modify the connection”.

One thing worth mentioning is, if you leave the database file outside of your project, the path of the database file will actually be hardcoded into your project. Before deployment, please update this setting and replace the full path with a relative path.

Cheers!

08/04 Update: this MSDN How to is helpful too. It describes in detail how to manage local data files in your project.

SSEUtil RTM version is now available (by yag)

YAG — Fri, 04 Nov 2005 09:55:00 GMT

For all you developers who love the command line, or want an easy way to perform simple administration functions on SQL Server 2005, you can now download the SQL Server Express Utility. Among its capabilities, you can:

Connect to the main instance or user-instance of SQL Server.
Create/Attach/Detach/List databases on the server.
Upgrade database files to match the version of the server.
Execute SQL statements via the console (similar to SQLCMD) or the console window (UI).
List the instances of SQL Server on the local machine or on remote machines.
Log all input/output.

and more! One hint - it works with more than just SQL Express. It will work with SQL Server 2000 and SQL Server 2005 as well.

Global launch events (by yag)

YAG — Fri, 14 Oct 2005 22:21:00 GMT

I'll be in San Francisco at the November 7th launch event for Visual Studio 2005, SQL Server 2005 and Biztalk 2006. If you are there, please stop by and say hello. I'll be hanging out at the Visual Studio area. If you can't make it, we'll be having global launch events over the next few months. You can find the list and register at www.microsoft.com/launchtour2005/.

New SQL Server Editions (by yag)

vsdata — Sat, 26 Feb 2005 01:27:00 GMT

I'm a few days late posting this, but I wanted to point y'all to Tom's article on the new set of SKUs for SQL Server - including the new Workgroup Edition which is even available now for SQL Server 2000.

Here's a picture of the SQL Server 2005 packaging and pricing:

It doesn't include the Developer Edition which will still be available.

Milind is on Channel9 (by yag)

vsdata — Fri, 28 Jan 2005 19:14:00 GMT

Milind Lele from our team did an interview with Robert Scoble about SQLCLR and Visual Studio integration. He discusses what's so great about it, and shows some demos. Twenty one minutes of video goodness... <g>

SSE and app building

vsdata — Sat, 22 Jan 2005 02:12:00 GMT

Well, it's been a ride in getting SSE ready for our upcoming beta. Getting a server product to work in local data scenarios has been hard. There are a lot of issues. But, we're getting there.

But Wow. It is totally cool.

All of the same APIs I use for full SQL work exactly the same for SSE. But, I get Xcopy functionality on top. So, moving the app around on machines that have SSE is seamless.

I've been doing app building with SSE since early December for both Win and Web apps. (Helping find the little issues here and there that need to get cleaned up.) That's been fun since I am a self-described ASP idiot -- so I'm learning ASP along the way. With both SSE and Cassinni, I can develop and play with local web apps that leverage SQL Server to my heart's content. I have to say that ASP's web developer product A.K.A. Venus makes web development pretty easy. I have had an interesting time with some of the bugs ....

Wrt to Yag's post, I've also been using the new report control in the apps as well. Works great. In a demo I did for the Envision conference that's going on, I did a simple little form that uses the report control and Xcopied it with the .exe and the MDF to a different location to show it working. Now, if I can just get the list elements in the report control to behave a little better ...

SQL Reporting Services in VS2005 (by yag)

vsdata — Fri, 21 Jan 2005 19:19:00 GMT

A few days ago, I pointed to a blog entry by Jackie Goldstein in which he discussed his favorite data enabling features in VS2005 and promised that I'd be watching it for comments. Well, Alex Kazovic asked a question:

Do you know if the next Beta of SQL RS 2005 will work with SQL Server Express? Whilst, I’m using the full version of SQL Server, I’m sure there are a lot of people using MSDE or Jet that are thinking of using SQL Server Express, but would like a good reporting deigner.

Good question, Alex. There are two aspects to this question - data you report against and the database that manages the reports that you're running. Additionally, the answer is somewhat different between windows forms and web forms.

In Reporting Services, you can run against any data that has a provider - so yes, you can report against data in SSE, Access, Fox, SQL, Oracle, etc. That's the case today and will continue to be the case.

Reporting Services today is a server based product. So, you license it via a license of SQL Server and it runs as a web front end - and accessible through web services for your own front ends. In VS2005 this changes. There will be reporting controls for Windows Forms that allows you to drop the control on the form and specify a datasource for a given report. That report will run locally (the control has the smarts to run the RDL) against your datasource. Note that these are the same datasources you build forms against - even objects! So, for applications that take advantage of Windows Forms, you'll be licensed with VS to run it locally. If you want to take advantage of server features like scheduled reports, email blasts, etc., you'll have to have a copy of SQL Server and license it as usual. For web applications, the same licensing as today applies.

Hope that answers your question, Alex!

Caveat: As always, this information may change as we get closer to release.

Four most compelling issues in VS 2005 around data access (by yag)

vsdata — Wed, 19 Jan 2005 05:39:00 GMT

Jackie has a post discussing the move from Access to .NET. As part of it, he focuses on what he thinks are the key features for data-centric developers. Numbers one and two are:

(1) The improved experience and productivity of designing/building data-centric WinForms
(2) The improvement in easily building forms that use automatic data binding and actually work correctly

for the rest, check out his entry! I'll be looking in on his site for comments... Thanks for the kudos, Jackie... I'll be sure to pass this along to all the teams that were involved.

SQL Server Express 2005 December Community Tech Preview (by Mairead)

vsdata — Wed, 08 Dec 2004 20:32:00 GMT

The SQL Server Express Team has released their December Community Tech Preview and it's available for you to download for free off MSDN. Lance (VS DATA Program Manager Lead) will provide some more information from on this over the upcoming days. Stay tuned ;-)

Learning more about SQL Server Express 2005 (by Mairead)

vsdata — Thu, 02 Dec 2004 18:29:00 GMT

If would like to get extra information about SQL Server Express 2005, check out the Whitepaper that Rajesh George a Program Manager on the SSE team has up on MSDN

Blog entries about SQL Server Management Studio (by yag)

vsdata — Sun, 28 Nov 2004 05:27:00 GMT

I'm just cleaning up a few last items before I head to India, and noticed that Bill Ramos is blogging about the management tools that are coming in SQL Server 2005. I look forward to seeing his take on the tools.

SQL Server Express and VB6 (by yag)

vsdata — Wed, 27 Oct 2004 16:05:00 GMT

Scott Swigart over at 3Leaf has posted a blog entry titled "SQL Express: The Little Engine that Could". In it, he shows how the great new capabilities of SSE can be used by VB6 developers instead of Jet (Access) databases.

My only response to this is "yup!" <g>. SQL Server Express is one of the projects I've most enjoyed working on in this release. The ability to have a database that is XCOPY deployable, that can be connected to via a file path, that will run as Normal User and needs no upgrading to work under SQL Server is awesome . Before I came to Microsoft, one decision we often had to make was how to support both local data stores and SQL Server as the application grew or moved to a larger office. SSE now gives us the best of both worlds - the ease of Access or Fox data files, with the simple movement to SQL Server.

Check out the SQL Server 2005 Yukon website (by Mairead)

vsdata — Thu, 26 Aug 2004 14:15:00 GMT

Just in case you have not seen it already, check out the SQL Server 2005 (Yukon) site for the latest information of what features are part of the Yukon release, the latest information on SQL Server Express 2005 and lots of whitepapers to while away your wet and windy afternoon(at least that’s what the weather is like here in SeattleL

SQL Express Management Tool (by yag)

vsdata — Wed, 28 Jul 2004 08:30:00 GMT

Paschal blogs: My wish is for the Microsoft guys is that you make a separate manager for SQL Express 2005.

Euan blogs (separately): One of the tools that was shown in the demo(if it went as planned) at TechEd should have been Express Manager ( XM ). This is a new lightweight query and admin tool. We are going to make it available for download sometime in August as it is lagging a little behind the rest of Yukon. XM is built in managed code and the goal is to make the download size really small, the initial version that supports query only will be a 2MB download if you have the NETFx 2.0 and SMO on the machine.

I just love bringing people together <g>

Congrats to the SQL team! (by yag)

vsdata — Wed, 28 Jul 2004 08:23:00 GMT

A little late, I know, but SQL Server 2005 hit Beta 2 this week. You can get an overview of its features here.