Connect MS Access Database to Visual Studio manually

Question

I am working on a plugin for the software Autocad in Visual Studio (C#) and would like to import a MS Database manually. I looked a bit online and saw that you can connect to a database via the toolbar but I'd like for the user to import a .accdb file by clicking on a button from WinForms. Is it possible for me to do something like that? I'm thinking of a library or any helpful tool (like System.Xml) so that I can access the database via code and potentially SQL queries.

To make things clearer, here is an example of how the plugin would work:

1. Open Autocad and the Plugin
2. WinForms window pops up with a button: Import Database
3. After successful import, data will be loaded in a dropdown and you can select one of the values

Every suggestion and tip is appreciated! :)

Answer 1

Use System.Data and System.Data.OleDb.
You'll have to look up your connection string for your database. This isn't a robust solution, but it gets the job done quick.

    public DataSet GetDataSet(string sql)
    {
        DataSet dataSet = new DataSet();
        using (OleDbConnection conn = new OleDbConnection(connString))
        {
            try
            {
                conn.Open();
                OleDbDataAdapter adapter = new OleDbDataAdapter(sql, conn);
                adapter.Fill(dataSet);
            }
            catch (Exception ex) { throw new Exception(ex.Message);  }
            finally { conn.Close(); }
        }
        return dataSet;
    }