Implementing a DataReader
The DataReader implementation must provide two basic capabilities: forward-only access over one or more of the resultsets obtained by executing a Command, and access to the column values within each row.
Data types from your data source will be stored in your .NET-based application as .NET Framework types. Your DataReader implementation will also provide strongly typed accessor methods for your DataReader that return column values as .NET Framework types. Examples of a strongly typed accessor would be GetInt32, GetString, and so on.
If your .NET Framework data provider has proprietary types that cannot adequately be exposed as .NET Framework types, you may extend the interfaces to support proprietary types, then add typed accessors for your DataReader that return proprietary types as well. For example, you can add GetMyStructure, GetMyTimeStamp, and so on. An example of this is the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server, which exposes proprietary types using the System.Data.SqlTypes Namespace. The SqlDataReader then exposes those types as SqlTypes using strongly typed accessor methods. For example: GetSqlBinary, GetSqlDateTime, GetSqlDecimal, and so on.
The following topics contain sample code for an implementation of a DataReader object, including some sample strongly typed accessor methods.
For a sample Visual Basic implementation:
For a sample C# implementation:
See Also
Implementing a .NET Framework Data Provider | Sample .NET Framework Data Provider