"Toby Groves" <n***@iconia.org.uk> wrote in message
news:yem$uLAlU78DFwgK@iconia.org.uk...
> Hi, after a bit of advice here if possible.
>
> I have an application which needs to store several different types of
> "document".  Each of these documents have many properties in common but in
> addition will have some properties peculiar to themselves.  In normal
> class parlance, I'd have a base document class which implements the core
> functionality and from this I'd derived a class for each type of document
> which extends the base class.
>
> The question is how do I go about persisting these documents to a
> database, particularly in the ADO.NET world.  Obviously each document type
> will be stored in its own table which has columns to cater for all the
> properties of that specific document type but I'm wondering what the best
> way of organising the access to these tables is?
>
> Can I implement any form of inheritance with typed DataSets in a similar
> manner to classes, or do I have to implement a completely separate DataSet
> for each document type, although much of the code would be identical?
> Even if I can use some form of inheritance, would there be any mileage in
> doing so and what advantages or disadvantages would it convey?
>
> Would I possibly be better off using the aforementioned class hierarchy,
> loading the data from the database into instances of these classes and
> then binding interface components to these objects or is this needlessly
> complex?  I'm a bit confused as to when to use business objects for
> interface binding rather than DataSets but that's almost another question.
>
> If anyone can offer any advice in this area or better still, point me at
> some reading material I can wade through I'd be most grateful.
> --
> Toby