This is a very basic type of question. Please bear with me.

What is the recommended approach in .NET equivalent to the following VFP technique: A DBF included in the exe file describes some data types, and an external DBF with the same structure describes additional data types as well as any overrides to the definitions contained in the internal table. The tables are joined with a SELECT ... UNION ALL ... SELECT and ordered with external items first so they are the ones found in a search through the resulting table or array.

Thank you very much,

Alex