// generic method to fetch data from OleDb source into a reader

OleDbDataReader fetchReader ( string query, string db ) {
   // connect to data source
   OleDbConnection myConn = new OleDbConnection ( 
      "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OleDb.4.0; Data Source=" + 
      Server.MapPath ( "~/app_data/" + db + ".mdb" ) );

   // initialize command object with query
   OleDbCommand myCmd = new OleDbCommand ( query, myConn );

   // open connection
   myConn.Open ( );

   // return datareader
   return myCmd.ExecuteReader ( CommandBehavior.CloseConnection );
}


// generic method to fetch data from OleDb source into a dataset

DataSet fetchData ( string query, string db ) {
   // connect to data source
   OleDbConnection myConn = new OleDbConnection ( 
      "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OleDb.4.0; Data Source=" + 
      Server.MapPath ( "~/app_data/" + db + ".mdb" ) );

   // initialize dataadapter with query
   OleDbDataAdapter myAdapter = new OleDbDataAdapter ( query, myConn );

   // initalize and fill dataset with query results
   DataSet myData = new DataSet ( );
   myAdapter.Fill ( myData );

   // return dataset
   return myData;
}


// generic method to fetch scalar value from SQL Server

object fetchScalar ( string query, string db ) {
   // connect to data source
   OleDbConnection myConn = new OleDbConnection ( 
      "Provider=Microsoft.Jet.OleDb.4.0; Data Source=" + 
      Server.MapPath ( "~/app_data/" + db + ".mdb" ) );

   // initialize command object with query
   OleDbCommand myCmd = new OleDbCommand ( query, myConn );

   // open connection
   myConn.Open ( );

   // get scalar
   object scalar = myCmd.ExecuteScalar ( );

   // close connection
   myConn.Close ( );

   // return scalar
   return scalar;
}