Build a .NET Application on the Oracle Database with Microsoft
Visual Studio 2010
by John Paul Cook
Learn the basic yet essential processes involved in building a
.NET application that uses an Oracle database.
Published June
2011
With the popularity of Microsoft's .NET Framework, many
developers are hungry for information about the best means of
integrating .NET applications with Oracle—not only in terms of
basic connectivity, but also in relationship to effective and
efficient application development using Microsoft Visual Studio
2010. (The Visual Studio 2005/2008 version of this article is found
here. )
In this article, I'll explain the basic yet essential processes
involved in building a C# or Visual Basic .NET application that
uses an Oracle database, including:
How to add project references to support Oracle class libraries
in your .NET project
How to create Oracle Database connection strings
How to work with Connection, Command, and DataReader
objects
You will have the opportunity to apply what you have learned in
three practice labs, ranging in difficulty from the relatively
simple to the more complex. If you are already familiar with
building .NET applications for Oracle Database with Visual Studio
2005/2008, the experience with Visual Studio 2010 is very
similar.
For information and labs about how to secure your application,
see my article "Securing
a .NET Application on the Oracle Database." (Also, see
the OTN .NET Developer Center for
technical articles covering a range of Oracle .NET application
lifecycle issues.)
Note that the free Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio,
available for download from OTN, provides a
Visual Studio add-in that makes the development of .NET apps on
Oracle much easier and more intuitive. That subject is beyond our
scope here, however; see the Oracle Developer Tools for Visual Studio
Product Center for more information.
.NET Data Provider
In addition to basic Oracle client connectivity software, .NET
applications require the use of what is known as a managed data
provider (where "managed" refers to code managed by the .NET
framework). The data provider is the layer between the .NET
application code and the Oracle client connectivity software. In
almost every case, the best performance is achieved by using a
provider optimized for a specific database platform instead of the
generic .NET OLE DB data provider.
Oracle, Microsoft, and third-party vendors all offer .NET data
providers optimized for an Oracle database. Oracle and Microsoft
make their Oracle data providers available for free. Microsoft's
provider for the .NET Framework is deprecated. Oracle continues to
support and develop their .NET data provider, Oracle Data Provider
for .NET (ODP.NET). In this article, we will use ODP.NET, which is
included with the Oracle Database or as a separate download.
ODP.NET provides standard ADO.NET data access, while exposing
Oracle database-specific features, such as XML DB, data access
performance optimizations, and Real Application Clusters load
balancing and fast connection failover. The current ODP.NET
version, 11.2, supports connecting to Oracle Database 9i
Release 2 servers and higher versions. The
database server can be on Windows, Linux, UNIX, or any other
operating system platform Oracle database supports.
When ODP.NET and Oracle client software are installed,
application development using Visual Studio can begin. It's a good
idea to confirm client connectivity before starting development. If
you can connect to Oracle Database using Oracle client software,
such as SQL*Plus on the same machine as Visual Studio, then your
Oracle client-side software is properly installed and
configured.
If you are new to Oracle, see the section "Installing .NET
Products" in the Oracle Database 2 Day Developer's
Guide for background information regarding
installing and configuring ODP.NET specifically, or to the Oracle Database Documentation
Library for general information about Oracle
Database.
Creating a Project in Visual Studio 2010
Let’s create an ODP.NET application that retrieves data from the
Oracle database. Later, we’ll see how to perform
error handling with ODP.NET and handle an additional data retrieval
scenario.
After starting Visual Studio, the first task is to create a
project. You can either click New Project as shown
below or select File | New | Project.
A New Project dialog box appears. On the left
side of the dialog box under Installed Templates,
select the programming language of your choice. In our example,
Visual Basic was chosen. On the middle of the dialog, choose a
project template. To keep things simple, a Windows Forms
Application is selected.
You'll want to specify meaningful names for the project name (we
used OraWinApp) and the solution name (we used
OraWinApp). A solution contains one or more
projects. When a solution contains only one project, many people
use the same name for both. Notice that there is a dropdown list
box allowing you to specify which version of the .NET Framework you
want to target. If you are writing applications for an older
version of the .NET Framework, you should select the appropriate
version from the dropdown list. Click the Ok
button to continue.
Adding a Reference
Because our project must connect to an Oracle database, it is
necessary to add a reference to the ODP.NET DLL containing the data
provider of our choice. Within the Solution Explorer on the right
side of Visual Studio, select the project name, right click and
select Add Reference. Alternatively, you can go to
the menu bar and select Project and then select
Add Reference.
The Add Reference dialog box appears. Select
the .NET tab. Visual Studio will construct a list
of .NET components available for you to add to your
project. This may take several
seconds. When complete, you can click on the
Component Name column to alphabetize the component
list.
ODP.NET is found under the Oracle.DataAccess component name.
Select Oracle.DataAccess from the list, then click
the OK button to make the ODP.NET data provider
known to your project. Be sure to select the correction version.
Since this is a .NET 4 project, the 4.112.2.0 version of
Oracle.DataAccess was chosen here, but you can chose any ODP.NET
version beginning with 4.
Visual Basic/C# Statements
After adding references, it is standard practice to add Visual
Basic Imports statements or C# using statements. Technically, these
statements are not required, but they do allow you to refer to
database objects without using lengthy, fully qualified names.
By convention, these statements appear at or near the top of a
code file, before the namespace or class declaration.
Imports
Oracle.DataAccess.Client ' Visual Basic ODP.NET Oracle managed
provider
using
Oracle.DataAccess.Client; // C# ODP.NET Oracle managed
provider
If you added the reference, Intellisense will help you complete
the addition of an Imports or using statement as shown in Figure
5.
Connection Strings and Objects
An Oracle connection string is inseparable from Oracle names
resolution. In this article, we will connect to Oracle’s sample HR
schema with user id “hr” and password “hr”. The tnsnames.ora file
is an Oracle network configuration file that defines database
addresses for establishing connections. Suppose we had a database
alias of OraDb defined in a tnsnames.ora file as follows:
OraDb=
(DESCRIPTION=
(ADDRESS_LIST=
(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521))
)
(CONNECT_DATA=
(SERVER=DEDICATED)
(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)
)
)
The OraDb alias defines the database address connection information
for the client. To use the OraDb alias defined in the tnsnames.ora
file shown above, you would use the following syntax:
Dim oradb As String = "Data
Source=OraDb;User Id=hr;Password=hr;" ' Visual Basic
string oradb = "Data
Source=OraDb;User Id=hr;Password=hr;"; // C#
You can modify the connection string to obviate the need for the
tnsnames.ora file, however. Simply replace the name of the alias
with how it would be defined in a tnsnames.ora file. The database
alias in this article is specific to my database setup. (Click
here for more information about
creating a database alias for your database.)
' Visual Basic
Dim oradb As String = "Data Source=(DESCRIPTION=" _
+ "(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521))" _
+ "(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)));" _
+ "User Id=hr;Password=hr;"
// C#
string oradb = "Data Source=(DESCRIPTION="
+ "(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521))"
+ "(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)));"
+ "User Id=hr;Password=hr;";
As you can see above, the username and password are embedded in the
connection string in clear text. This is the simplest approach to
creating a connection string. However, the clear text approach is
undesirable from a security perspective. In particular, you must
understand that compiled .NET application code is only marginally
more secure than the clear text source code files. It is very easy
to decompile .NET DLL and EXE files and view the original clear
text contents. (Encryption is in fact the appropriate solution, but
that subject would be a quite lengthy digression from our
discussion here.)
Next, you must instantiate a connection object from the
connection class. The connection string must be associated with the
connection object.
Dim conn As New
OracleConnection(oradb) ' Visual Basic
OracleConnection conn =
new OracleConnection(oradb); // C#
Notice that the connection string is associated with the connection
object by being passed through the object's constructor, which is
overloaded. The constructor's other overload allows the following
alternative syntax:
Dim conn As New
OracleConnection() ' Visual Basic
conn.ConnectionString = oradb
OracleConnection conn =
new OracleConnection(); // C#
conn.ConnectionString = oradb;
After associating a connection string with a connection object, use
the Open method to make the actual connection.
conn.Open() ' Visual
Basic
conn.Open(); //
C#
We'll cover error handling later.
Command Object
The command object is used to specify the SQL command text that is
executed, either a SQL string or a stored procedure. Similar to the
connection object, it must be instantiated from its class and it
has an overloaded constructor. In this sample, ODP.NET will perform
a SQL query to return the department_name from the departments
table where the department_id is 10.
Dim sql As String =
"select department_name from departments where department_id = 10"
' Visual Basic
Dim cmd As New OracleCommand(sql, conn)
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
string sql = " select
department_name from departments where department_id = 10"; //
C#
OracleCommand cmd = new OracleCommand(sql, conn);
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
Using different overloads, the syntax can be structured slightly
differently. The command object has methods for executing the
command text, which will be seen in the next section. Different
methods are appropriate for different types of SQL commands.
Retrieving a Scalar Value
Retrieving data from the database can be accomplished by
instantiating an OracleDataReader object and using the
OracleCommand’s ExecuteReader method, which returns an
OracleDataReader object. Returned data is accessible by passing
either the column name or zero-based column ordinal to the
OracleDataReader.
Dim dr As
OracleDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader() ' Visual Basic
dr.Read()
Label1.Text = dr.Item("department_name") ' retrieve by column
name
Label1.Text = dr.Item(0) ' retrieve the first column in the select
list
Label1.Text = dr.GetString(0) ' return a .NET data type
Label1.Text = dr.GetOracleString(0) ' return an Oracle data
type
C# developers must use accessor type methods for retrieving data.
There are typed accessors for returning .NET native data types and
others for returning native Oracle data types, all of which are
available in C#, Visual Basic, or any other .NET language.
Zero-based ordinals are passed to the accessors to specify which
column to return.
OracleDataReader dr =
cmd.ExecuteReader(); // C#
dr.Read();
label1.Text = dr["department_name"].ToString(); // C# retrieve by
column name
label1.Text = dr.GetString(0).ToString(); //
return a .NET data type
label1.Text = dr.GetOracleString(0).ToString(); // return an Oracle data type
In this simplified example, the returned value of department_name
is a string and is used to set the value of the label control's
text property, which is also a string. But if department_id, which
is not a string, had been retrieved instead, there would be a data
type mismatch. The .NET runtime attempts to implicitly convert from
one data type to another when the source and destination data types
don't match. Sometimes the data types are incompatible and the
implicit conversion fails, throwing an exception. But even when it
works, it's still better to use explicit data type conversions
instead of implicit data type conversion.
An explicit cast to integer is shown below:
Label1.Text =
CStr(dr.Item("department_id")) ' Visual Basic integer to string
cast
C# is not as forgiving as Visual Basic on implicit conversions.
You'll find yourself doing explicit conversions:
label1.Text =
dr.GetInt16("department_id").ToString(); // C#
You can explicitly cast scalar values as well as arrays.
Close and Dispose
Either the connection object's Close or the Dispose method should
be called to close the connection to the database. The Dispose
method calls the Close method implicitly.
conn.Close()
' Visual Basic
conn.Dispose() ' Visual Basic
conn.Close();
// C#
conn.Dispose(); // C#
You don't have to explicitly call Close or Dispose if you use VB's
Using keyword or C#'s using keyword.
using (OracleConnection conn
= new OracleConnection(oradb)) // C#
{
conn.Open();
OracleCommand cmd = new OracleCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText = "select department_name from departments where
department_id = 10";
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
OracleDataReader dr = cmd.ExecuteReader();
dr.Read();
label1.Text = dr.GetString(0);
}
In addition, OracleCommand includes a Dispose method;
OracleDataReader includes a Close and Dispose
method. Closing and disposing .NET objects free
up system resources, ensuring more efficient application
performance, which is especially important under high load
conditions. You can experiment with some of the concepts we've
learned here in Lab 1 (Retrieving Data from the Database) and Lab 2 (Adding Interactivity).
Error Handling
When an error occurs, .NET applications should gracefully handle
the error and inform the user with a meaningful
message. Try-Catch-Finally structured error
handling is a part of .NET languages. Here is a relatively
minimalist example of using the Try-Catch-Finally syntax:
' Visual Basic
Try
conn.Open()
Dim cmd As New OracleCommand
cmd.Connection = conn
cmd.CommandText = "select department_name from departments "
_
+ "where department_id = " + TextBox1.Text
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
If dr.Read() Then
Label1.Text = dr.Item("department_name") ' or use dr.Item(0)
End If
Catch ex As Exception ' catches any error
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString())
Finally
' In a real
application, put cleanup code here.
End Try
// C#
try
{
conn.Open();
OracleCommand cmd = new OracleCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText = "select department_name from departments where
department_id = " + textBox1.Text;
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
if (dr.Read()) // C#
{
label1.Text
= dr["department_name"].ToString();
// or use dr.GetOracleString(0).ToString()
}
}
catch (Exception ex) // catches any error
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString());
}
finally
{
// In a real
application, put cleanup code here.
}
Although this approach will gracefully capture any errors in
attempting to get data from the database, it is not user friendly.
For example, look at the following message displayed when the
database is unavailable:
An ORA-12545 is quite meaningful for an Oracle DBA or developer,
but not for an end user. A better solution is to add an additional
Catch statement to trap for the most common database errors and
provide user-friendly messages.
' Visual Basic
Catch ex As OracleException ' catches only Oracle errors
Select Case
ex.Number
Case 1
MessageBox.Show("Error attempting to insert duplicate data.")
Case 12545
MessageBox.Show("The database is unavailable.")
Case Else
MessageBox.Show("Database error: " + ex.Message.ToString())
End
Select
Catch ex As Exception ' catches any error
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString())
// C#
catch (OracleException ex) // catches only Oracle errors
{
switch
(ex.Number)
{
case 1:
MessageBox.Show("Error attempting to insert duplicate
data.");
break;
case 12545:
MessageBox.Show("The database is unavailable.");
break;
default:
MessageBox.Show("Database error: " + ex.Message.ToString());
break;
}
}
catch (Exception ex) // catches any error not previously
caught
{
MessageBox.Show(ex.Message.ToString());
}
Notice the two Catch statements in the code sample above. If there
aren't any Oracle errors to catch, the first Catch statement branch
is skipped, leaving any other non-Oracle error to be caught by the
second Catch statement. Catch statements must be ordered in the
code from most specific to most general. After implementing the
user-friendly exception handling code, the ORA-12545 error message
appears as follows:
The Finally code block is always executed regardless of whether
or not an error occurred. It is where cleanup code belongs. If you
don't use Using or using, you should dispose your connection and
other objects in the Finally code block.
Retrieving Multiple Values Using a DataReader
Thus far our examples have only showed how to retrieve a single
value. An OracleDataReader can retrieve values for multiple columns
and multiple rows. First consider a multiple column, single row
query:
select department_id,
department_name, location_id from departments where department_id =
10
To keep things simple for this article, we are using a single
table, the departments table. To obtain the values of the columns,
either zero-based ordinals or column names can be used. Ordinals
are relative to the order in the query. Thus, the location_id
column's value can be retrieved in Visual Basic by using either
dr.Item(2) or dr.Item("location_id").
Here is a code snippet that concatenates the department_name and
location_id columns from the previous query:
Label1.Text = "The " +
dr.Item("department_name") + " department is in " _
+ dr.Item("location_id") ' VB
label1.Text = "The " +
dr["department_name"].ToString() + " department is in " +
dr["location_id"].ToString(); // C#
Now consider a query that returns multiple rows:
select department_id, department_name,
location_id from departments
To process multiple rows returned from an OracleDataReader, some
type of looping construct is needed. Furthermore, a control that
can display multiple rows is desirable. An OracleDataReader is a
forward-only, read-only cursor, so it can't be bound to an
updateable or fully scrollable control such as a Windows Forms
DataGrid control. An OracleDataReader is compatible with a ListBox
control, as the following code snippet illustrates:
While dr.Read() ' Visual
Basic
ListBox1.Items.Add("The " +
dr.Item("department_name") _
+ " department is in " + dr.Item("location_id"))
End While
while (dr.Read()) //
C#
{
listBox1.Items.Add("The " +
dr["department_name"].ToString() + " department is in " +
dr["location_id"].ToString());
}
Lab 3 (Retrieve Multiple Columns and Rows with an
OracleDataReader) highlights some of these concepts.
Building and Running on Windows x64
When running Visual Studio 2010 on a Windows x64 operating
system, you can use the Configuration Manager to
change the target platform type. Select the solution in the
Solution Explorer, right-click, and select
Configuration Manager.
Summary
This article has introduced you to the process of accessing
Oracle databases using .NET programming languages. You should now
have the capability to connect to the database and retrieve
multiple columns and rows.
Lab 1: Retrieving Data
from the Database
We begin with the requirement that you've created a project and
added a reference as shown previously in this article.
Continue by adding a button control and a label control to the
Windows form. Be sure to leave room above the controls to allow
additions that will be made in Lab 2.
Add code to retrieve data from the Oracle database and display the
results on the form. Put the code in a click event handler for the
button. The easiest way to get started with this task is to double
click the button because it will create a stub for the event
handler.
Add Visual Basic Imports statements before the Public Class
declaration or C# using statements before the namespace
declaration.
Imports
Oracle.DataAccess.Client ' Visual Basic, ODP.NET Oracle managed
provider
using
Oracle.DataAccess.Client; // C#, ODP.NET Oracle managed
provider
Add the Visual Basic version of the click event handler code
between the Private Sub and End Sub statements (be sure to replace
ORASRVR with your server's host name and replace the service name
entry with your database’s service name):
Dim oradb As String =
"Data Source=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=" _
+
"(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521)))" _
+
"(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)));" _
+ "User Id=hr;Password=hr;"
Dim conn As New
OracleConnection(oradb) ' Visual Basic
conn.Open()
Dim cmd As New
OracleCommand
cmd.Connection = conn
cmd.CommandText = _
"select department_name from departments where department_id =
10"
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
Dim dr As
OracleDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader()
dr.Read() ' replace this statement in next
lab
Label1.Text = dr.Item("department_name") ' or dr.Item(0), remove in
next lab
dr.Dispose()
cmd.Dispose()
conn.Dispose()
Add the following C# code to the click event handler between the {
and } curly braces for the button's click event handler (be sure to
replace ORASRVR with your server's host name and replace the
service name entry with your database’s service name):
string oradb = "Data
Source=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST="
+
"(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521)))"
+
"(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)));"
+ "User Id=hr;Password=hr;";
OracleConnection conn =
new OracleConnection(oradb); // C#
conn.Open();
OracleCommand cmd = new
OracleCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText =
"select department_name from departments where department_id =
10";
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
OracleDataReader dr =
cmd.ExecuteReader();
dr.Read(); // replace this statement in next
lab
label1.Text = dr["department_name"].ToString(); // remove in next lab
dr.Dispose();
cmd.Dispose();
conn.Dispose();
Run the application. Click the button. You should see the
following:
Lab 2: Adding Interactivity
Now that the basics of database access are implemented in the
code, the next step is to add interactivity to the application.
Instead of running the hard coded query, a textbox control can be
added to accept a user input for the department number (i.e.,
department_id).
Add a textbox control and another label control to the form as
shown below. Set the text property of the Label2 control to “Enter
department_id:” and make sure that the Text property of TextBox1
isn't set to anything.
Modify the code that defines the select string:
cmd.CommandText = _
"select
department_name from departments where department_id = "_
+
TextBox1.Text 'VB
cmd.CommandText = "select
department_name from departments where department_id = " +
textBox1.Text; // C#
Run the application. Test the application by entering 10 for
the department_id. Retest the application by entering an invalid
department_id (e.g., 12). The application will abort.
Modify your code to prevent an error when an invalid
department_id is entered. Recall that the ExecuteReader method
actually returns an object. Replace the line containing dr.Read
with all of the following statements.
If dr.Read() Then ' Visual
Basic
Label1.Text
= dr.Item("department_id").ToString()
Else
Label1.Text
= "department_id not found"
End If
if (dr.Read()) //
C#
{
label1.Text
= dr["department_id"].ToString();;
}
else
{
label1.Text
= "department_id not found";
}
Test the application by entering a department_id that does not
exist. Now the application no longer aborts. Enter the letter A
instead of a number and click the button. The application aborts.
Clearly, our application needs a better approach to handling
errors.
Although it could be argued that the application should not allow
the user to make invalid inputs that would cause an error,
ultimately the application must have robust error handling added.
Not all errors are preventable, so error handling must be
implemented.
Lab 3: Retrieve Multiple
Columns and Rows with an OracleDataReader
Now that a single value has been retrieved, the next step is to
retrieve multiple columns and rows with an OracleDataReader. A
ListBox control is added to the form to display the results.
Add a ListBox control to the form. Resize the control to fill
most of the width of the form as shown below.
Remove the where clause from the query and add the additional
columns:
cmd.CommandText = _
"select
department_id, department_name, location_id from departments" '
VB
cmd.CommandText = "select
department_id, department_name, location_id from departments "; //
C#
The query results will be read in a while loop and will
populate the ListBox control. Modify your Visual Basic code to look
like this, making the appropriate changes to the host and service
name for your database:
Dim oradb As String =
"Data Source=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST=" _
+
"(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521)))" _
+
"(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)));" _
+ "User Id=hr;Password=hr;"
Dim conn As New
OracleConnection(oradb) ' Visual Basic
conn.Open()
Dim cmd As New
OracleCommand
cmd.Connection = conn
cmd.CommandText = _
"select
department_id, department_name, location_id from departments" '
VB
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text
Dim dr As
OracleDataReader = cmd.ExecuteReader()
While dr.Read()
ListBox1.Items.Add("The " + dr.Item("department_name") + _
" department is in " + dr.Item("location_id").ToString())
End While
dr.Dispose()
cmd.Dispose()
conn.Dispose()
Modify your C# code to look like this:
string oradb = "Data Source=(DESCRIPTION=(ADDRESS_LIST="
+
"(ADDRESS=(PROTOCOL=TCP)(HOST=ORASRVR)(PORT=1521)))"
+
"(CONNECT_DATA=(SERVER=DEDICATED)(SERVICE_NAME=ORCL)));"
+ "User Id=hr;Password=hr;";
OracleConnection conn =
new OracleConnection(oradb); // C#
conn.Open();
OracleCommand cmd = new
OracleCommand();
cmd.Connection = conn;
cmd.CommandText = "select department_id, department_name,
location_id from departments.168";
cmd.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
OracleDataReader dr =
cmd.ExecuteReader();
while (dr.Read())
{
listBox1.Items.Add("The " +
dr["department_name"].ToString() +
" department is in " + dr["location_id"].ToString());
}
dr.Dispose();
cmd.Dispose();
conn.Dispose();
Run the application. The ListBox should be populated with all
of the department names and locations from the departments table.
The code downloads have error handling implemented.
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