What Is It?

Microsoft Active X Data Objects (ADO) is a framework of Component Object Model objects used to access data sources. ADO provides a layer between programming languages and OLE DB (a means to access data stores). This layer allows a developer to write programs that access data without the knowledge of how the database is implemented. In other words, the developer need not know SQL to access a database when using ADO, although that developer can use ADO to execute arbitrary SQL commands.

Who Is it For?

ADO allows users to create a connection to a database and to manipulate data using ADO. ADO is supported in ASP and in VBA for Office.

Features

ADO enables client applications to access and manipulate data from a variety of sources through an OLE DB provider. Its primary benefits are ease of use, high speed, low memory overhead, and a small disk footprint. ADO supports key features for building client/server and Web-based applications.

Microsoft also provides a Multidimensional ADO (ADO/MD) that provides easy access to multidimensional data from languages such as Microsoft Visual Basic, Microsoft Visual C++, and Microsoft Visual J++. ADO MD extends Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) to include objects specific to multidimensional data, such as the CubeDef and Cellset objects. With ADO MD, users can browse multidimensional schema, query a cube, and retrieve the results.

Another feature of ADO includes Remote Data Service (RDS). With this feature, users can move data from a server to a client application or Web page, manipulate the data on the client, and return updates to the server in a single round trip. Microsoft ActiveX Data Objects Extensions for Data Definition Language and Security (ADOX) is an extension to the ADO objects and programming model. ADOX includes objects for schema creation and modification, as well as security. Because it is an object-based approach to schema manipulation, you can write code that will work against various data sources regardless of differences in their native syntaxes.

ADOX is a companion library to the core ADO objects. It exposes additional objects for creating, modifying, and deleting schema objects, such as tables and procedures. It also includes security objects to maintain users and groups and to grant and revoke permissions on objects. Finally, in the newer Microsoft .NET programming framework, an upgraded version of ADO called ADO.NET can be used to gain access to database procedures. The object structure in ADO.NET is different than that of the traditional ADO structure.

Compatibility

ADO and its components usually are used in conjunction with a high-level language such as VBScript in an ASP environment, or Visual Basic. However, users also can utlize languages such as Delphi and D++ Builder and development environments from Microsoft rival Borland Software Corporation to use ADO to access various databases. The user of any ADO system should refer to documentation for the OLAP OLE DB provider to determine the syntax and behaviors supported by the provider.

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