Sage

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

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:

vb.net 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