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Dynamic Data Web

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This walkthrough demonstrates how you can create a basic Web site that uses ASP.NET Dynamic Data and a WCF Data Service. Dynamic Data enables you to create a data-driven Web site with little or no coding. WCF Data Services enables you to create and consume Open Data Protocol (OData) services in your application. You can use the Entity Provider for DB2 to generate Dynamic Data and WCF Data Services to access information stored in an IBM DB2 relational database. For more information, see ASP.NET Dynamic Data Content Map (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=199029) and WCF Data Services (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=199030).

This topic contains the following sections:

Prerequisites

You must to install the following components in order to complete this walkthrough:

  • Visual Studio 2012

  • Internet Information Services 7

  • IBM DB2 relational database server with a sample database such as SAMPLE, CORPDATA, or DSN8910.

Creating a Dynamic Data Web Site

Follow these steps to create Dynamic Data Web sites in Visual Studio with the ASP.NET Dynamic Data templates.

  1. Start Visual Studio and from the File menu, click New Web Site. The New Web Site dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the left pane under Installed Templates, select Visual C#.

  3. In the center pane, select ASP.NET Dynamic Data Entities Web Site.

  4. In the Web location box, select File System and then enter the name of the folder where you want to store the pages of the Web site. For example, type the folder name C:\WebSites\DynamicData and click OK.Visual Studio creates the Web site.

Adding a Data Connection to Server Explorer

In Visual Studio, the Server Explorer displays database connections beneath the Data Connections node. Follow these steps to open a database connection, retrieve and manipulate data.

  1. On the Tools menu, select Connect to Database. The Add Connection dialog box is displayed.

  2. Click Change. The Change Data Source dialog box is displayed. Click DB2 Database, and then click OK.

  3. Click Configure. The Data Source dialog box of the Data Source Wizard is displayed.

  4. In the Data source platform, select DB2/NT, and then click Next. The TCP/IP Network Connection dialog box is displayed.

  5. In the Address or alias box, enter 127.0.0.1. In the Port box, enter 50000, and then click Next. The DB2 Database dialog box is displayed.

  6. In the Initial Catalog box, enter SAMPLE. In the Package collection box, enter NULLID. In the Default schema and Default qualifier boxes, enter DB2ADMIN, and then click Next. The Locale dialog box is displayed.

    Note

    When generating an entity model using the Entity Data Model Tools in Visual Studio, you must specify a value for the Default Qualifier connection property of the underlying MsDb2Client ADO.NET Framework Provider for DB2, which allows the provider to fetch the correct scope of DB2 catalog (tables, views, stored, procedures, columns and parameters) based on the target DB2 schema (collection).

  7. In the Host CCSID list, select ANSI – Latin (1252), and then click Next. The Security dialog box is displayed.

  8. In the User name box, enter db2admin. In the Password and Password confirmation boxes, enter Pass@word1, and then click Next. The Advanced Options dialog box is displayed.

  9. Click Next. The All Properties dialog box is displayed.

  10. Click Next. The Validation dialog box is displayed.

  11. Click Connect, click Packages, click Sample Query, and then click Next. The Data Link Properties dialog box closes, and the new data connection appears beneath the Data Connections node, named for the server and database accessed.

  12. In the Add Connection dialog box, type DB2 for Data source name.

  13. Click Test Connection, click OK, and then click OK.

  14. Optionally, in the Server Explorer, expand Data Connections, and view the database tables.

Adding Data to the Web Site

Follow these steps to add a database connection to the project. Later you will use the database to create a data context (classes to represent database entities) and then register the data context for use by Dynamic Data.

  1. In Solution Explorer, right-click the project, click New Item. The Add New Item dialog box is displayed.

  2. In the left pane under Installed Templates, select Visual C#. In the center pane, select ADO.NET Entity Data Model.

  3. In the Name box, enter a name for the database model. For example, enter the name DB2.edmx.

  4. Click Add. The create an App_Code folder dialog box is displayed.

  5. Click Yes. The Choose Model Contents dialog box of the Entity Data Model Wizard is displayed.

  6. Select Generate from database, and then click Next. The Choose Your Data Connection dialog box is displayed.

  7. In the drop-down list, select the connection that you configured above. For example, select DB2.SAMPLE.DB2ADMIN. Click Yes to include the sensitive data (user name and password) in the connection string, and then click Next. The Choose Your Database Objects dialog box appears.

  8. Click the triangle to expand the Tables node. Click the check box for DEPARTMENT and EMPLOYEE tables, and then click Finish. The ADO.NET Entity Data Model Designer is displayed.

  9. In the Solution Explorer, open the DB2.Designer.cs file that is located under the DB2.edmx file node. Notice that the DB2.edmx file contains the SAMPLEEntities class that represents the database. It also contains entity classes that represent database tables.

  10. In Solution Explorer, open the web.config file. Notice that the connectionStrings element contains the connection string to the DB2 database.

  11. Close the class file and the web.config file.

Registering the Data Context

Follow these steps to register the data context for use by Dynamic Data.

  1. In the Solution Explorer, open the Global.asax file.

  2. Uncomment the line that contains the DefaultModel.RegisterContext method.

  3. Set the appropriate context type, and set the variable ScaffoldAllTables to true.

    DefaultModel.RegisterContext(typeof(SAMPLEModel.SAMPLEEntities), new ContextConfiguration() { ScaffoldAllTables = true });

    This registers the data context for use by Dynamic Data and enables scaffolding for the data model.

    Important

    Enabling scaffolding by setting the variable ScaffoldAllTables to true can pose a security risk because you are exposing all the tables in the data model for display and edit operations. For more information, see ASP.NET Dynamic Data Scaffolding (https://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=199054).

  4. In the File menu, click Save Global.asax.

Testing the Dynamic Data Web Site

Follow these steps to test the Dynamic Data Web site that you have created.

  1. In the Debug menu, click Start Debugging. If prompted to enable debugging, click OK. Internet Explorer displays the Dynamic Data Web site.

  2. Click the DEPARTMENTs hyperlink to view the DB2 table.

  3. Click the hyperlinks to navigate the model over the database. Optionally, click Edit, Update, Delete to make changes to the database through the Entity Provider for DB2.

  4. A page is displayed that contains the data from the table that you selected. For tables that contain foreign key fields, a link is provided to the details page of the referenced table. If the table is a parent table in a one-to-many relationship, a link is provided to the list page of the child table.

    Close the browser when you have finished navigating the database and editing records.

See Also

WCF Data Service Entity Framework