This section provides a walk-through of writing data access code to Microsoft Excel in ADO.NET.

See Data Model for more information on the available data source entities and how to query them with SQL. See SQL Compliance for the SQL syntax.

Connecting from Code

See Establishing a Connection for the prerequisite information you need to deploy the provider and configure the connection to Microsoft Excel. Connecting from Code shows how to connect with the classes ExcelConnection, ExcelConnectionStringBuilder, and, in ASP.NET, ExcelDataSource.

Discovering Schemas

You can use the classes detailed in Schema Discovery to discover the table schemas at run time. You can also query the available System Tables to retrieve schema information, data source information, and other data provider metadata.

Executing SQL

You can use native ADO.NET interfaces to execute data manipulation SQL to Microsoft Excel: Querying with the DataReader and Querying with the DataAdapter provide code examples and guides to using native ADO.NET interfaces to access Microsoft Excel data. Results can be processed from the DataTable instance filled or from the DataReader returned.

Modifying the Data shows how to use the provider to update changes to a data set. For examples of the supported SQL syntax, see SELECT Statements, UPDATE Statements, INSERT Statements, and DELETE Statements.

Executing Stored Procedures

You can execute Calling Stored Procedures as parameterized statements or EXEC SQL statements with the ExcelCommand class.

Connection Pooling

Instantiate pooled connections by configuring the connection string. See Connection Pooling to create and configure a pool.