Month: April 2011

When reading data from SqlDataReader you have to know your select statement’s columns order to read and map data from database to your model. Often it looks somehow like this:

using (SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader())
{
	if (reader.Read())
		return new AnimalModel
		{
			AnimalId = reader.GetInt32(0),//or better with enum like that: AnimalId = reader.GetInt32((int)AnimalSelect.AnimalId)
			BirthDate = reader.GetDateTime(1),
			Name = reader.GetString(2)
			//etc...
		};
	else return null;
}

It’s a good practice to create enum representing select’s columns and using it instead of int indexes.
But wouldn’t it be better if you could just do it like that:

using (SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader())
{
	if (reader.Read())
		return reader.ReadObject();
	else return null;
}