ADO 2.6 Programmer's Reference [ILLUSTRATED] (Paperback)

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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Useful for anyone who programs with databases on Windows, the third edition of ADO 2.6 Programmer's Reference is an up-to-the-minute source of information on the latest features that are available in ActiveX Data Objects (ADOs) and related standards from Microsoft. Besides the fact that it's a handy resource that you can use every day, this book is filled with practical tips on how to get the most out of database APIs.

The practical focus is on explaining ADO and related standards. In a chapter-by-chapter tour, the book covers all of the bases with Microsoft Universal Data Access (UDA) strategy. You learn what works best when connecting to recordsets with ADO, and when to take advantage of Internet Explorer-specific APIs like RDS, data shaping, and JRO. Each chapter examines the objects in a particular database standard, and then drills down into the properties, methods, and events that you'll need to program with ADO effectively.

Tips and even warnings about known bugs for particular objects are provided in abundance. The charts listing features that are supported by various OLE DB providers also are useful. You get specific suggestions about which APIs to use, plus some benchmarking of various cursor types and database programming strategies (comparing stored procedures, parameterized queries, and hard-coded SQL within ADO code).

Reference material naturally makes up the heart of this text. With over 250 pages on all of the important ADO standards (including RDS, ADOX, ADOMD, and JRO), all of the properties, methods, events, constants, and even error codes are listed, making this an indispensable book for any VB, VBScript/JavaScript, or C/C++ programmer.

Experienced ADO developers will appreciate the attention to new features, including the latest in support for XML and multidimensional databases. Even if you're entirely new to Microsoft databases, this patient and very thorough tour of ADO can help you get productive with database development quickly on today's Windows. --Richard Dragan

Topics covered:

• Overview of Microsoft Universal Data Access (UDA)
• OLE DB and ActiveX Data Objects (ADOs)
• New ADO 2.6 features and enhancements
• ADO tutorial
• Asynchronous database programming with events
• Connection pooling
• Using the Connection object (including connection pooling, transactions, and events)
• The Command object in detail (including Command Streams, parameterized queries, and the Parameters collection)
• Using the Recordset object (methods, properties, events, and collections)
• The Record and Stream objects
• Guide to ADO collections (Errors, Fields, and Properties)
• Remote Data Services (RDS) APIs and tutorial
• Accessing database information with ADO extensions for DDL and security (ADOX)
• ADO Multidimensional (ADOMD)
• Jet and Replication objects (JRO)
• Tutorial for RDS data shaping
• Performance issues with ADO (cursor types compared)
• Enhancing performance with connection pooling
• Stored procedures and parameterized queries
• Comprehensive reference to all of the ADO objects, methods, properties, events, and error codes

Product Description

The ADO 2.6 Programmer's Reference provides a concise and comprehensive guide to the ways in which ADO 2.6 can be used in all kinds of applications. It demonstrates the use of ADO both in Web applications written using ASP, and in compiled applications written using Visual Basic and other languages. It also includes a reference section for fast access to detailed lists of the properties, methods and events available in ADO.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 689 pages
• Publisher: Peer Information; 3rd edition (August 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 186100463X
• ISBN-13: 978-1861004635
• Product Dimensions: 9 x 6 x 1.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #1,044,824 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 27 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book... more than just a reference, September 8, 2000

By	Mark (Ottawa, Canada) - See all my reviews

This is an excellent update to the original ADO 2.0 & ADO 2.1 programmer's reference. It covers all of the new features in a very readable and easy to use format. There are lots of code snippets and example to help you understand quickly.

The ADO objects are all covered in detail, along with ADOX, ADOMD, Remote Data Services, Jet replication, Data Shaping, even XML stuff. Plus there is an interesting chapter on Performance issues which gives you a hand in deciding what sort of techniques to use to speed things up. There are also around 15 appendices which have just the method names, constants and quick summaries so you can look them up fast. There are even charts showing which drivers support which OLE DB properties and which providers support which schemas.

Very highly recommended. First-rate reference book, excellent price. If you already program with ADO you cannot go wrong with this.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent must have book. For the shelf above your monitor., February 9, 2001

By	T. Hollins (Columbia Station, OH USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I was looking for pure reference. This is it. It will tell you essentially everything you need to know about ADO. I used it on NT with ADO 2.1 on MS Access 97 database. This helped tremendously.

Remember those old Borland books where they tell you which C functions work on which operating systems? This book takes the same approach. Even though it says ADO 2.6, it distinguishes what works on NT, vs Win2000. Also helps you with database differences, Oracle vs SQL Server vs MSAccess.

You'll wear out the binding like I did, I guarantee it. Happy programming!

13 of 16 people found the following review helpful:

1.0 out of 5 stars Big book, little useful advanced content, April 25, 2001

By	James Bruno (Colorado Springs, CO) - See all my reviews

Once again, I am awed by the fact that a publisher can continually put out books with untested code samples. I am an advanced database programmer and I found this book of little use to me. RDS was simply glazed over with the properties, events and methods supplied, but no concrete explanations of how to use it in an Internet environment. For a beginner or intermediate user, this book may supply a good foundation, but when trying to figure out why the code samples don't work or why there are inconsistencies in the syntax of the samples, this book will leave you hanging. May as well just fight it out with MSDN...