Today I used the SQLDataReader of the SQLClient namespace to create a new Merchant Tools page for StoreFront 6.0. A client wanted to know how many customers were getting the weekly mailings and I was suprised to learn that StoreFront 6.0’s Merchant Tools does not show you any record counts. You cannot determine how many products, customers, or subscribers you have using the Merchant Tools because that information is not displayed anywhere. This is a major oversight!
So I created a new Record Counts page for the Merchant Tools because it is fairly easy to get record counts. All of my sample code uses DataSets with the SQLClient namespace but I did not want a DataSet to retrieve just one field value. The DataReader is better if you aren’t going to be using a DataGrid.
