Datasheet

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Part I: Illuminating Silverlight
Silverlight does not have any API calls to talk to the database directly. It
can use Web services or use another technology called WCF Data Services.
Using WCF Data Services, Silverlight can perform all the necessary database
operations such as creating, reading, updating, and deleting (known
collectively as CRUD) data using calls to a Web service.
WCF Data Services is accessed by applications as RESTful services. REST
stands for Representational Transfer State, and RESTful services present data
from the database to applications as resources that can be accessed using
unique Universal Resource Indicators (URIs), which are HTTP addresses. In
addition, commands in the HTTP protocols (such as GET, POST, PUT, and
DELETE) are used to specify the type of action that needs to be performed
on the data. For example, to get information about a book with an ISBN
whose last six digits are 524657, the REST address could look something like
http://servername/Book/524657. Rather than return an HTML page for
this address, the REST service would return an XML document containing all
the information about the book.
05_524657-ch01.indd 2205_524657-ch01.indd 22 3/31/10 11:37 AM3/31/10 11:37 AM