Understanding MVC & SQL Server

Question

I am following some tutorials and I'm completely lost on how MVC/SQL Server connect.

I am going through a tutorial and the person mentions that the following code automatically creates a database for me:

<connectionStrings>
   <add name="LibraryContext" 
        connectionString="Data Source = |DataDirectory|Library.sdf" providerName="System.Data.SqlServerCe.4.0"/>

Can you please tell me what the above code does in a simple and detailed way. What |DataDirectory|Library.sdf does and what SQL Server CE..etc...all of it.. PLEASE & THANK YOU!

marc_s · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-28 12:53:32Z

4

SQL Server CE is the Compact Edition of SQL Server - basically your whole database in a single file (the .sdf file) and the code to access it in a set of DLLs - no server installation needed.

It works fine for most cases, but has limitations (no stored procedures etc.) - ErikEJ has a great comparison page comparing SQL Server CE to Express
the |DataDirectory| part of your connection string refers to the App_Data directory that's been created in your web site

So in the end, the database connection goes to a file in
```
(your web site root)\App_Data\Library.sdf
```

edited Jul 28, 2012 at 12:53

answered Jul 28, 2012 at 12:42

marc_s

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Spikeh · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-28 12:47:00Z

2

MVC is effectively a tiered presentation layer - it can act alone, or with any back end database.

The "code" you have posted above is not code - it's configuration information that's read from a configuration file (in your case, web.config). Configuration files are used to store and easily change settings in your applications.

A connection string is literally just a string that contains database credentials. The database would need to already exist somewhere (unless you decide to implement a code-first ORM like Entity Framework code-first). In your example, you're trying to connect to an existing SQL Server CE (Compact Edition) file. You would need to create a SQL Server CE file in your App_Data directory. I'm afraid I only use the full "server" version of SQL Server, so I can't help you there, unless I look it up!

Once your database exists, you can connect to it in a lot of different ways. My current preference is Entity Framework, though historically it's been via ADO.Net. I would Google "Hello World SQL Server", which should help you find a decent tutorial on where to start.

answered Jul 28, 2012 at 12:47

Spikeh

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2 Comments

Subby Over a year ago

Can you please show me how I can connect to a proper SQL SERVER 2008 R2. I have made a simple database in there using SQL servers IDE. I have an mvc application and I'm just thinking how to link them together. What's the best way? I keep hearing about linq/entity framework etc.

Spikeh Over a year ago

There are a lot of ways to do this. Even though EF is quicker and easier, I would recommend learning some ADO.Net so you can hopefully appreciate where EF comes from. There are a lot of examples on here.

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