XML Query Definitions in .Net

Despite the fact that Mr. Clark wrote his article in 2004, there is still applicability in his musings and experiences with the .Net system. ” After years of writing custom configuration files for my applications, I’ve finally realized (along with much of the rest of the world) that, for this purpose, XML provides far more functionality with far less effort. The syntax that I settled on for the query configurations is quite basic. Initially, I specify the actual text (or name) of the query and type (for which I use the values of “Text” versus “SP” or “StoredProcedure”), and possibly a timeout value (specified in seconds):

<query command='' type='' timeout='' />

This is followed by one or more optional parameter descriptions:

<param name='' type='' length='' default='' direction='' />

Technically, all of the information above is optional, but in practice the configuration string will be useless without certain pieces of information. In the initial query description, the “command” tag is required, and for a parameter description the “name” and “type” tags should always be specified.”

Read the detailed full article by David Clark