read sql query strings from a file

First regarding the queries parsing, well if you intend to use plain text files then I believe you will not require any special parsing, I mean after all you are going to store SQL queries inside of it so you could just retrieve the queries text and pass it into a SqlCommand constructor.

Now regarding the file type, there are quite a few of them that you can choose from, see this SO answer, it suggests toml, json, xml or txt, so I would say that this is all up to you. Use whatever you would prefer.
Also to add, yes you can even use INI file for this and here is a VB.NET library that can process INI files that you could use.

Last thing, did you consider using the Stored Procedures as an alternative?

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Deborah Stoddard11y ago
First regarding the queries parsing, well if you intend to use plain text files then I believe you will not require any special parsing, I mean after all you are going to store SQL queries inside of it so you could just retrieve the queries text and pass it into a SqlCommand constructor.

Now regarding the file type, there are quite a few of them that you can choose from, see this SO answer, it suggests toml, json, xml or txt, so I would say that this is all up to you. Use whatever you would prefer.
Also to add, yes you can even use INI file for this and here is a VB.NET library that can process INI files that you could use.

Last thing, did you consider using the Stored Procedures as an alternative?