what is a 'provider' in .net?

[Mike P]

Can anybody tell me exactly what a provider is? And give an example?

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[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

On Aug 22, 9:25 am, Mike P <mike.p...@gmai l.comwrote:

Can anybody tell me exactly what a provider is? And give an example?

It could mean any number of things in different contexts. What context
are you interested in?

Jon

[John Timney \(MVP\)]

The easiest description I can think of is a provider is an API that does
something, so you don't have to code it - like the membership provider or a
data provider for connecting to a database.

Regards

John Timney (MVP)
http://www.johntimney.com
http://www.johntimney.com/blog
"Mike P" <mi*******@gmai l.comwrote in message
news:eX******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP02.phx.gbl...

Can anybody tell me exactly what a provider is? And give an example?

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[Mike P]

Jon,

I have inherited a project that has a number of classes with names such
as CartProvider, ClientProvider, WebServiceProvi der, DataProvider. Does
this help?
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[=?Utf-8?B?WWFyb24gS2Fybmk=?=]

In case you mean to the provider pattern so :
http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms972319.aspx

--
Sincerely
Yaron Karni
http://dotnetbible.blogspot.com/
"Mike P" wrote:

Can anybody tell me exactly what a provider is? And give an example?

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[Jon Skeet [C# MVP]]

On Aug 22, 10:01 am, Mike P <mike.p...@gmai l.comwrote:

I have inherited a project that has a number of classes with names such
as CartProvider, ClientProvider, WebServiceProvi der, DataProvider. Does
this help?

Right. These will usually be similar to factories - basically they're
likely to give you a way of obtaining a Cart, Client, WebService or
some data, hiding the details of which Cart implementation is used
etc.

Jon

[sloan]

The Provider Pattern is based on an OO Design Pattern, called the Factory
Pattern.

Here is an example (mine) of the Simple Factory Pattern.

http://sholliday.space s.live.com/Blog/cns!A68482B9628 A842A!126.entry
As far as the Member Provider goes, basically MS provides an abstract class
to handle logins, password.
They also give you one concrete version, called the SqlMembershipPr ovider.

The good part is that if you don't like the default provider
(SqlMembership) , you can write your own version, inheriting from the
abstract base class called MembershipProvi der !
Thus if you already have a place where usernames and passwords are kept, you
don't get screwed out of using all the cool 2.0 login controls.

Sometimes people use the abstract version (MembershipProv ider)
interchangably with the concrete version (SqlMembershipP rovider).
Thus adding some confusion.

4 guys has good explanations of the Membership Provider and the Provider
Model as well.

At my blog post, find the
Here is another link, discussing the ASP.NET 2.0 Provider Model.
line, and follow the link.
"Mike P" <mi*******@gmai l.comwrote in message
news:eX******** ******@TK2MSFTN GP02.phx.gbl...

Can anybody tell me exactly what a provider is? And give an example?

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