In this section, we will understand the different sources or origins of a particular piece of data. The data of interest for any application can reside at several locations. For example:
Read-only data can be stored in a local file within the application
Windows Phone provides an isolated storage where user-specific data can be stored locally on the phone
Data can also be stored on the Internet, which can then be accessed using web services
The following figure depicts data source options available for a Windows Phone application:
When we say local files, it means the file is packaged along with the application. Normally, we package a read-only data as a local file which is used by the application. Files such as text (.txt extension) or XML (.xml extension) are used for these purposes. Usually these local files are compiled either as a resource file or as a content file. We will look at each one of them in the following sections.