You can either write the SQL yourself to insert data into SQL Server 2005 Mobile Edition or you can leverage data binding on your form to update the underlying database automatically. You should review the programming guide for SQL Mobile and the IBuySpyStore sample application for examples of how to do this.

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms173041(SQL.90).aspx

-Darren

Well, forms do not update databases, code does. If your form has a textbox control on it called "Last Name", your options are to use data binding on this control to persist whatever the user enters in this control or to write code that uses System.Data.SqlServerCe namespace classes to perform the select/insert/update yourself.

The SqlCeCommand class contains ExecuteQuery and ExecuteNonQuery methods which take SQL which can be run against SQL Mobile.

Before you try to do any data binding, I recommend learning how to get data from and insert/update data to a SQL Mobile database using code (ADO.NET and SQL) - that way you can understand what is going on with the binding and tune the SQL statements that the BindingSource (DataSetGenerator or ResultSetGenerator) create for you.

-Darren

The concept I think you are chasing down is called Data Binding in the Microsoft .NET world. The technical coverage of Data Binding in the .NET Compact Framework can be found here:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/9k8yax26(VS.80).aspx

Many controls in the .NET Compact Framework have a DataSource member that supports binding to a DataTable which you can obtain with a table adapter, binding source, or for read-only simple binding, by filling a DataTable using a SqlCeDataReader as shown below:

Dim dt As DataTable = DatabaseManager.GetInstance().GetDataTable("SELECT ID, Name FROM Technician WHERE Status = 'Active'")

Me.cboTechnician.DataSource = dt

Me.cboTechnician.DisplayMember = "Name"

Me.cboTechnician.ValueMember = "ID"

Simply by setting the cboTechnician combobox's datasource, display and value members, this control is populated by the underlying DataTable and you have the unique ID of each value available without a subsequent round trip to the database.

A newsgroup is not the best place to teach data binding - I recommend a copy of either Paul Yao's book .NET Compact Framework Programming with C# (or VB.NET) or the MSDN Press book .NET Compact Framework Core Reference by Andy Wigley. Both offer excellent coverage of this topic.

-Darren