Sage

[iceman89]

I have been set the task of providing a small forms app to interact with Sage Line 50 Accounts database.

Before I get started though I wondered if anyone knew if you can use VB to retrieve and write data to and from the database and if so how? I read somewhere that it's ODBC?

Cheers

[cicatrix]

Yes, I thnk that creating database front-ends is what VB does the best

The classes you need are within the System.Data.Odbc or more generally System.Data (contains classes for OleDb connections, Sql server, etc)

HEere is the sample code:

Sub ConnectToDB()
        Dim conn As New Odbc.OdbcConnection("Your connection String")
        Dim cmd As New Odbc.OdbcCommand("select * from tablename;", conn)
 
        ' now you can read your data sequentally row by row
        Dim rd As Odbc.OdbcDataReader
        ' OR with a data adapter
        Dim ap As New Odbc.OdbcDataAdapter("select * from tablename;", conn)
 
        Dim dt As New DataTable("tablename")
        Try
            ' read data with the reader:
            conn.Open()
 
            rd = cmd.ExecuteReader
            Do While rd.Read
                Dim field1 As Object = rd.Item("field1")
                Dim field2 As Object = rd.Item("field2")
                ' etc
            Loop
 
            conn.Close()
 
            ' Or read with the adapter
 
            conn.Open()
            ap.Fill(dt) ' Fill the datatable with values
            ' You can now assign your datatable as a datasource to some control
            conn.Close()
        Catch ex As Exception
            ' Something terrible has happenned - tell user.
        End Try
    End Sub