Finding Records in a Database

A useful feature to add to your form is a Find button. When a find button
is clicked, you then display the record that the user was searching for.
Or display a "Not found" message if there were no matching records.

So add a new button to your form. Set the Text property to Find, and
the Name property to btnFind. Double click your button to get at the
coding window.

There are quite a few different ways you can implement a search. The
method we'll use is to Select a row from the dataset. We'll allow a user
to search using a last name.

Add the following three lines to your btnFind code:

string searchFor = "Khan";
int results = 0;
DataRow[] returnedRows;

The first variable sets up a string called searchFor. This is obviously

the record we want to find. We've hard-coded the value, here, and just
entered a last name from our database table. But you'd want this value
to come from a text box on your form.

The second variable, results, will be used to tell us whether or not any

results were found.

The third line is a DataRow array, which we've called returnedRows.

We're using an array because more than one record might be found.
Each record will then be stored in a position in the array.

To get at a particular Row in your Dataset, you can use the Select
method. Here's the code. It's a bit long, so we've had to spread it over
two lines. It should be one line in your code:

returnedRows =
ds1.Tables["Workers"].Select("last_Name='" + searchFor
+ "'");
So you start with your Dataset, which was ds1 for us. Then you need
the name of a Table in your Dataset. We want to search the "Workers"
table. After a dot, we have the Select method:

Select("last_Name=' " + searchFor + " ' ");

It looks a bit messy with all those quote marks. But first we have an
outer pair:

Select(" ");

Inside of these two double quotes, we have this:

last_Name=

You need to type the name of a Column from your Dataset, here. We're
using the last_Name Column. But we could have used the first_Name
Column instead:

first_Name=

The Column names are the same ones we used in our database table.
But notice the equals sign. The Select method allows you to use other
SQL keywords. If you don't want an exact search, for example, you can
use Like instead of =.

Select("last_Name Like 'Khan' ")

Note where the single quotes are - surrounding the text you want to
search for. Because our search used a variable, we're using plus
symbols to concatenate. Which is why it's so messy!

But here's what your code should look like: (We're using word wrap)
If a row is found, it will then be stored in the returnedRows array. To get
a count of how many rows were found, we can used this code:

results = returnedRows.Length;

This just uses the Length property of the returnedRows array. The

length is how many items are in the array. If it's greater than zero, it
means we've found a match. We can use an IF Statement to check:

if (results > 0)
{
//RECORD FOUND
}
else
{
MessageBox.Show("No such Record");
}

If a record is found, we need to get at the values in the Columns. We

can create a new Row for this:

if (results > 0)
{
DataRow dr1;

dr1 = returnedRows[0];
}

We now set up a DataRow called dr1. We want the first returned Row

to be stored here. The first Row is returnedRows[0];

Putting it all together, here's the full code for the search:
Notice the line that display the job title in a Message box:

MessageBox.Show( dr1["job_Title"].ToString() );

Because dr1 is now a DataRow, you can access its data by either using
the Column name, or the index number. So these lines return the same
values:

dr1["job_Title"]
dr1["first_Name"]
dr1["last_Name"]

dr1[3]
dr1[1]
dr1[2]

It's up to you which ones you want to use.

But try your programme out. Click your Find button and the job title of
the person named Khan should appear in the message box.
Close your programme down. Change the name of the person being
searched for and try again.

Exercise
Add a text box to your form. Get the name of the person from this text
box, rather than using the hard coded value that you have at the
moment.

Exercise
Add a drop down list next to the text box. The drop down list should
allow a user to search by last name, or by job title. (Searching by first
name doesn't make much sense - too many people with the same first
name!)

When you have finished these two exercises, your form might look
something like this:
Exercise
As you can see from the form above, although the Supervisor is
displayed in the message box, it's the IT Manager who appears in the
text boxes. For this exercise, display the person's details in the text
boxes rather than in a message box.

OK, that's enough of databases! It's a huge subject, obviously, and

many books have been written on the subject. We've only touched the
surface in these lessons, and encourage you to delve deeper.
Especially if you want a job as a programmer!
In the next and final section, we'll take a look at some other things you
can do with C# .NET. Up first is multiple forms.