Walkthrough: Using Stored Procedures

Article
03/27/2017

For the latest documentation on Visual Studio 2017, see Visual Studio 2017 Documentation.

You can’t call a stored procedure in a SQL Server database directly from LightSwitch, but you can create a local table in your LightSwitch app that contains the parameters for the stored procedure, then call the stored procedure from a server tier event. This walkthrough shows how to insert customer records in a SQL database by using stored procedures.

Many database administrators don’t allow direct access to tables, instead exposing read-only views and providing stored procedures to insert, update, and delete records. LightSwitch doesn’t recognize stored procedures, so any database that relies on stored procedures to update records might at first appear to be unusable. If you do a little extra work, you can indeed use these databases from LightSwitch.

Prerequisites

This walkthrough uses the Northwind sample database.

Create a stored procedure

In most cases, you’ll access stored procedures that already exist in a database. The Northwind database doesn’t have the necessary stored procedure to insert customer records, so you must add it.

To add a stored procedure

On the menu bar, choose View, SQL Server Object Explorer.
In the SQL Server Object Explorer window, expand the NORTHWIND database node, and then choose Programmability.
Expand the Programmability node, and then choose Stored Procedures.
Open the shortcut menu for Stored Procedures, and then choose Add New Stored Procedure.

In the Code Editor, replace the contents with the following Transact-SQL code, and then choose the Update button.

CREATE Procedure [dbo].[InsertCustomer]  
    @CustomerID nchar
(5),  
    @CompanyName nvarchar
(40),  
    @ContactName nvarchar
(30),  
    @ContactTitle nvarchar
(30),  
    @Address nvarchar
(60),  
    @City nvarchar
(15),  
    @Region nvarchar
(15),  
    @PostalCode nvarchar
(10),  
    @Country nvarchar
(15),  
    @Phone nvarchar
(24),  
    @Fax nvarchar
(24)  
AS  
INSERT INTO [dbo].[Customers]  
           ([CustomerID]  
           ,[CompanyName]  
           ,[ContactName]  
           ,[ContactTitle]  
           ,[Address]  
           ,[City]  
           ,[Region]  
           ,[PostalCode]  
           ,[Country]  
           ,[Phone]  
           ,[Fax])  
     VALUES  
           (@CustomerID  
           ,@CompanyName  
           ,@ContactName  
           ,@ContactTitle  
           ,@Address  
           ,@City  
           ,@Region  
           ,@PostalCode  
           ,@Country  
           ,@Phone  
           ,@Fax)

In the Preview Database Updates dialog box, choose the Update Database button.

The InsertCustomer stored procedure is added to the database.

Create a LightSwitch App

In this step you’ll create an app to call the stored procedure and add new customers to the Northwind database.

To create the app

On the menu bar choose File, New, Project.
In the New Project dialog box, expand the Visual Basic or Visual C# node, and then choose the LightSwitch HTML Application template.
In the Name textbox, enter NorthwindSP, and then choose the OK button

To add a data source

In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the Data Sources node and choose Add Data Source.
In the Attach Data Source Wizard, choose Database, and then choose the Next button.
In the Connection Properties dialog box, enter the connection details for your Northwind database and then choose the OK button.
On the Choose your database objects page, expand the Tables node and select the Customers checkbox, and then choose the Finish button.

To add a local table

In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the Data Sources node and choose Add Table.
In the Properties window, choose the Name property and enter NewCustomer.

In the entity designer, add the following fields:

Name	Type	Required
CustomerID	String	Yes
CompanyName	String	Yes
ContactName	String	Yes
ContactTitle	String	Yes
Address	String	Yes
City	String	Yes
Region	String	Yes
PostalCode	String	Yes
Country	String	Yes
Phone	Phone Number	Yes
Fax	Phone Number	Yes

Notice that all fields are required. That’s because all of the parameters for the stored procedure require values. Also notice that the data type for the Phone and Fax fields are Phone Number. Even though these are stored in the database as nvarchar, you can take advantage of LightSwitch custom business types on the client tier.

To add a screen

In the entity designer, on the Perspective bar, choose HTMLClient.
On the Toolbar, choose the Screen button.
In the Add New Screen dialog box, choose the Common Screen Set template, in the Screen Set Name text box enter Customers, and in the Screen Data list choose NewCustomer, and then choose the OK button.

To call the stored procedure

In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the NorthwindSP.Server node and choose Add, Reference.
In the Add Reference dialog box, select the System.Configuration checkbox, and then choose the OK button.
In Solution Explorer, open the shortcut menu for the NewCustomer.lsml node and choose Open.
In the entity designer, on the Perspective bar, choose Server.
On the Toolbar, expand the Write Code list and choose NewCustomers_Inserting.

In the Code Editor, replace the existing code with the following:

Imports System.Configuration  
Imports System.Data  
Imports System.Data.SqlClient  
Namespace LightSwitchApplication  

    Public Class ApplicationDataService  

        Private Sub NewCustomers_Inserting(entity As NewCustomer)  
            Using connection = New SqlConnection  
                Dim connectionStringName = Me.DataWorkspace.NorthwindData.Details.Name  
                connection.ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(connectionStringName).ConnectionString  

                Dim procedure = "dbo.InsertCustomer"  
                Using command = New SqlCommand(procedure, connection)  
                    command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure  

                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@CustomerID", entity.CustomerID))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@CompanyName", entity.CompanyName))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@ContactName", entity.ContactName))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@ContactTitle", entity.ContactTitle))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@Address", entity.Address))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@City", entity.City))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@Region", entity.Region))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@PostalCode", entity.PostalCode))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@Country", entity.Country))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@Phone", entity.Phone))  
                    command.Parameters.Add(  
                        New SqlParameter("@Fax", entity.Fax))  

                    connection.Open()  
                    command.ExecuteNonQuery()  
                End Using  

            End Using  
        End Sub  
    End Class  

End Namespace

using Microsoft.VisualBasic;  
using System;  
using System.Collections;  
using System.Collections.Generic;  
using System.Data;  
using System.Diagnostics;  
using System.Configuration;  
using System.Data.SqlClient;  
namespace LightSwitchApplication  
{  

public class ApplicationDataService  
{  

private void NewCustomers_Inserting(NewCustomer entity)  
{  
using (connection == new SqlConnection()) {  
dynamic connectionStringName = this.DataWorkspace.NorthwindData.Details.Name;  
connection.ConnectionString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings(connectionStringName).ConnectionString;  

dynamic procedure = "dbo.InsertCustomer";  
using (command == new SqlCommand(procedure, connection)) {  
command.CommandType = CommandType.StoredProcedure;  

command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@CustomerID", entity.CustomerID));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@CompanyName", entity.CompanyName));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@ContactName", entity.ContactName));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@ContactTitle", entity.ContactTitle));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Address", entity.Address));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@City", entity.City));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Region", entity.Region));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@PostalCode", entity.PostalCode));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Country", entity.Country));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Phone", entity.Phone));  
command.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@Fax", entity.Fax));  

connection.Open();  
command.ExecuteNonQuery();  
}  

}  
}  
}  

}

When a new record is inserted into the NewCustomers table, this code runs, opening a connection to the Northwind database and running the InsertCustomer stored procedures, providing the values in the NewCustomer entity as parameters to the stored procedure.

To test the app

In the Code Editor, set a breakpoint in the NewCustomers_Inserting method.
Run the app and on the CustomersSet screen, choose the Add button.
On the Customers screen, fill in all of the fields and choose the Save button.

Notice that the breakpoint is hit, demonstrating that the code is working, and press F5 to continue. If you open the Customers table in the Northwind database, you’ll see your new customer record.

Next Steps

You can create your LightSwitch screens and business logic as usual and quickly and easily make a functioning application by using stored procedures.