<topic id="052f4a92-cf0f-4dcb-a79d-6770047e150f" revisionNumber="1">
  <developerConceptualDocument xmlns="http://ddue.schemas.microsoft.com/authoring/2003/5" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">
    <section address="connector-net">
      <title>MySQL Connector/Net</title>
      <content>
        <autoOutline />
        <para>
    Connector/Net lets you easily develop .NET applications that require
    secure, high-performance data connectivity with MySQL. It implements
    the required ADO.NET interfaces and integrates into ADO.NET aware
    tools. Developers can build applications using their choice of .NET
    languages. Connector/Net is a fully managed ADO.NET driver written
    in 100% pure C#.
  </para>
        <para>
    Connector/Net includes full support for:
  </para>
        <list class="bullet">
          <listItem>
            <para>
        Features provided by MySQL Server up to and including MySQL
        Server version 5.5.
      </para>
          </listItem>
          <listItem>
            <para>
        Large-packet support for sending and receiving rows and BLOBs up
        to 2 gigabytes in size.
      </para>
          </listItem>
          <listItem>
            <para>
        Protocol compression, which enables compressing the data stream
        between the client and server.
      </para>
          </listItem>
          <listItem>
            <para>
        Connections using TCP/IP sockets, named pipes, or shared memory
        on Windows.
      </para>
          </listItem>
          <listItem>
            <para>
        Connections using TCP/IP sockets or Unix sockets on Unix.
      </para>
          </listItem>
          <listItem>
            <para>
        The Open Source Mono framework developed by Novell.
      </para>
          </listItem>
          <listItem>
            <para>
        Fully managed, does not utilize the MySQL client library.
      </para>
          </listItem>
        </list>
        <para>
    This document is intended as a user's guide to Connector/Net and
    includes a full syntax reference. Syntax information is also
    included within the <legacyBold>Documentation.chm</legacyBold> file
    included with the Connector/Net distribution.
  </para>
        <para>
    If you are using MySQL 5.0 or later, and Visual Studio as your
    development environment, you can also use the MySQL Visual Studio
    Plugin. The plugin acts as a DDEX (Data Designer Extensibility)
    provider: you can use the data design tools within Visual Studio to
    manipulate the schema and objects within a MySQL database. For more
    information, see <link xlink:href="9f3f194e-ad35-4379-b04d-5dce4b34ce6a"></link>.
  </para>
        <alert class="note">
          <para>
      Connector/Net 5.1.2 and later include the Visual Studio Plugin by
      default.
    </para>
        </alert>
        <para>
     supports full versions of Visual Studio 2005, 2008, and 2010,
    although certain features are only available in Visual Studio 2010
    when using  version 6.3.2 and later. Note that  does not
    currently support Express versions of Microsoft products, including
    Microsoft Visual Web Developer.
  </para>
        <para>
          <legacyBold>Key topics:</legacyBold>
        </para>
        <list class="bullet">
          <listItem>
            <para>
        For connection string properties when using the
         class, see
        <link xlink:href="c26b6c1a-1652-4d9d-ac74-96cee9531a3b"></link>.
      </para>
          </listItem>
        </list>
      </content>
    </section>
  </developerConceptualDocument>
</topic>