Hello,
I have been asked to pull in columns for use in a web app.I am using asp.net and C#. I was using a dataReader to populate the class variables. The problem is that the dbf file can change. Sometimes rows are added or deleted so my class would have to change every time the data source file changes to represent the columns Is there a way around this?
Lots of ways of addressing this issue, your problem is handled by a whole class of solutions known as Object Relational Mapping or ORM. The absolute king of these in the Java and .Net world is NHibernate. This does nean a rebuild with each DB change though, I use code generation to solve that problem, builds the class and mapping files direct from the DB. Then you get into TDD and CI, to make sure you haven't broken anything and then .....
However, if you want something quick and dirty you could create a dictionary within your classes and store any extra columns in there. Completely flexible but your classes extra columns aren't defined within the class itself.