.NET Data Provider

What are the advantages of using the IBM .NET provider over OLE or ODBC?
I have been going thought the assembly and the only benefit I see is the
IBM data types and tracing. The only issue I ran into is converting
byte arrays into string. Here is my solution:



Private Function getTable(ByVal SelectCommand As String, ByVal
Connection As iDB2Connection, Optional ByVal convertByte As Boolean =
True) As DataTable

Dim cmd As New iDB2Command(SelectCommand, Connection)

Dim da As New iDB2DataAdapter(cmd)

Dim ds As New DataSet



Try

da.Fill(ds, "table0")



If ds.Tables("table0").Rows.Count = 0 Then

Return New DataTable

ElseIf ds.Tables("table0").Rows.Count > 0 And Not
convertByte Then

Return ds.Tables("table0")

Else

Dim table1 As New DataTable("table1")



' Parse column data types from Table0 to Table1

For Each dc0 As DataColumn In
ds.Tables("table0").Columns

Dim dc1 As New DataColumn(dc0.ColumnName,
dc0.DataType)



If dc1.DataType Is GetType(Byte()) Then

dc1.DataType = GetType(String)

End If



table1.Columns.Add(dc1)

Next

ds.Tables.Add(table1)



' Parse all data from Table0 to Table1

For Each dr0 As DataRow In ds.Tables("table0").Rows



Dim dr1 As DataRow = table1.NewRow()



For i = 0 To dr0.ItemArray.Count - 1

' Convert Byte() to String

' Not sure if other datatypes need some
conversion

If TypeOf (dr0(i)) Is Byte() Then

Dim byteArray As Byte() = dr0(i)

Dim field0 As New iDB2CharBitData(byteArray)

dr1(i) = field0.ToString(37)

Else

dr1(i) = dr0(i)

End If

Next



table1.Rows.Add(dr1)

Next



Return table1

End If

Catch ex As Exception

Console.WriteLine(ex.Message)

Return New DataTable

End Try



End Function