Defining the Schema of a DataTable

The schema, or structure, of a table is represented by columns and constraints. You define the schema of a DataTable using DataColumn objects as well as ForeignKeyConstraint and UniqueConstraint objects. The columns in a table can map to columns in a data source, contain calculated values from expressions, automatically increment their values, or contain primary key values.

Case Sensitivity

References by name to columns, relations, and constraints in a table are case-sensitive. Two or more columns, relations, or constraints can exist in a table that have the same name, but that differ in case. For example you can have Col1 and col1. In this situation a reference to one of the columns by name must match the case of the column name exactly, otherwise an exception is thrown. For example, if the table myTable contains the columns Col1 and col1, you would reference Col1 by name as myTable.Columns["Col1"], and col1 as myTable.Columns["col1"]. Attempting to reference either of the columns as myTable.Columns["COL1"] would generate an exception.

The case-sensitivity rule does not apply if only one column, relation, or constraint exists with a particular name. That is, if no other column, relation, or constraint object in the table matches the name of that particular column, relation, or constraint object, even by a difference in case, you may reference the object by name using any case and no exception is thrown. For example, if the table has only Col1, you can reference it using my.Columns["COL1"].

The CaseSensitive property of the DataTable does not affect this behavior. The CaseSensitive property applies to the data in the table and affects sorting, searching, filtering, enforcing constraints, and so on. References to the columns, relations, and constraints in a table are not affected by the CaseSensitive property.

In This Section

• Adding Columns to a Table
  Describes how to define the columns of a table using DataColumn objects.
• Creating Expression Columns
  Explains how the Expression property of a column can be used to calculate values based on the values from other columns in the row.
• Creating AutoIncrement Columns
  Describes how a column can be set to automatically increment numerical values to ensure a unique column value per row.
• Defining a Primary Key for a Table
  Describes how to specify the primary key of a table from one or more DataColumn objects.
• Adding Constraints to a Table
  Describes how to define foreign key and unique constraints for columns in a table.