The ADO.NET DataSet is a memory-resident representation of data that provides a consistent relational programming model regardless of the source of the data it contains. A DataSet represents a complete set of data including the tables that contain, order, and constrain the data, as well as the relationships between the tables. +
There are several ways of working with a DataSet, which can be applied independently or in combination. You can:
- Programmatically create a DataTable, DataRelation, and Constraint within a DataSet and populate the tables with data.
- Populate the DataSet with tables of data from an existing relational data source using a DataAdapter.
- Load and persist the DataSet contents using XML.