Database question
-
Sirs, until now I have not used any databases, I just did what any underdeveloped programmer in the stoneage must also have done, namely storing data in house made text files, and reading them from my app. Now that the future has begun I decided to go with it, and I am spiritually prepared to learn. But there are so many of abbreviations like ADO, DAO, ODBC, SQL etc. that I am pretty confused which way to go so that I can learn something useful and on the other hand not to have to deal with the whole universe at once. My data mainly comes from charts, and different engineering databases which rarely have thousands of elements rather less. On the user side I also wanna avoid special requirements, at most MS Office. Could you please share your ideas as to where to start? Thank you. Bunburry Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to their mistakes.(O.Wilde)
-
Sirs, until now I have not used any databases, I just did what any underdeveloped programmer in the stoneage must also have done, namely storing data in house made text files, and reading them from my app. Now that the future has begun I decided to go with it, and I am spiritually prepared to learn. But there are so many of abbreviations like ADO, DAO, ODBC, SQL etc. that I am pretty confused which way to go so that I can learn something useful and on the other hand not to have to deal with the whole universe at once. My data mainly comes from charts, and different engineering databases which rarely have thousands of elements rather less. On the user side I also wanna avoid special requirements, at most MS Office. Could you please share your ideas as to where to start? Thank you. Bunburry Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to their mistakes.(O.Wilde)
I find ADO to best the best option nowadays. It's very simple to get started with and there are plenty of examples in MSDN and the Platform SDK. ADO is a wrapper for ODBC/OLEDB and is probably the best place to start with databases. It can connect to pretty much any database from Access to SQL to Oracle providing you have the latest version MDAC installed. The thing I like about ADO is that I can pretty much take the same code from C++ to ASP to Visual Basic without too many headaches. Michael :-)
-
Sirs, until now I have not used any databases, I just did what any underdeveloped programmer in the stoneage must also have done, namely storing data in house made text files, and reading them from my app. Now that the future has begun I decided to go with it, and I am spiritually prepared to learn. But there are so many of abbreviations like ADO, DAO, ODBC, SQL etc. that I am pretty confused which way to go so that I can learn something useful and on the other hand not to have to deal with the whole universe at once. My data mainly comes from charts, and different engineering databases which rarely have thousands of elements rather less. On the user side I also wanna avoid special requirements, at most MS Office. Could you please share your ideas as to where to start? Thank you. Bunburry Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to their mistakes.(O.Wilde)
I too have come from the text file storage area, but i'm working on a project which is going to require large amounts of data (including archived data), so holding everything in arrays is a bit stupid... I'm currently learning DAO, which is a framework for interfacing with the MS Access engine (called the ket database engine). SQL (Structured Query Language) is the langauge you'll use to query data (try the SQL view in MS access once you've constructed a simple query to view the code). I don't think DAO would suit you much since you siad you want to avoid special requirements - DAO involves setting up a database using MS Access beforehand. ODBC is perhaps the way forward for you. I'm sure you'll have some helpful replies, i'm not really that experienced with databases as of yet. :) --- "Transmit in all known frequencies and in all known langauges, including Welsh."
-
I find ADO to best the best option nowadays. It's very simple to get started with and there are plenty of examples in MSDN and the Platform SDK. ADO is a wrapper for ODBC/OLEDB and is probably the best place to start with databases. It can connect to pretty much any database from Access to SQL to Oracle providing you have the latest version MDAC installed. The thing I like about ADO is that I can pretty much take the same code from C++ to ASP to Visual Basic without too many headaches. Michael :-)
Micheal, i'm developing an MFC app that will use a database for primary storage. What special requirments would ADO have? I need to be able to set the app up relitavely easily on other machines once finished. Also, is it easier to grasp than DAO? ARGH! My head hurts... too many TLA's.... : X| :) --- "Transmit in all known frequencies and in all known langauges, including Welsh."
-
Micheal, i'm developing an MFC app that will use a database for primary storage. What special requirments would ADO have? I need to be able to set the app up relitavely easily on other machines once finished. Also, is it easier to grasp than DAO? ARGH! My head hurts... too many TLA's.... : X| :) --- "Transmit in all known frequencies and in all known langauges, including Welsh."
ADO requires MDAC to be installed. This comes with Office but is a simple download from Microsoft. I find ADO easier to use than DAO but I haven't used DAO in 4 years. I use ADO in MFC apps, using one of the ADO wrapper classes found on CodeProject. Download some of the ADO classes here on CodeProject and compare them to your DAO code. Michael :-)
-
Sirs, until now I have not used any databases, I just did what any underdeveloped programmer in the stoneage must also have done, namely storing data in house made text files, and reading them from my app. Now that the future has begun I decided to go with it, and I am spiritually prepared to learn. But there are so many of abbreviations like ADO, DAO, ODBC, SQL etc. that I am pretty confused which way to go so that I can learn something useful and on the other hand not to have to deal with the whole universe at once. My data mainly comes from charts, and different engineering databases which rarely have thousands of elements rather less. On the user side I also wanna avoid special requirements, at most MS Office. Could you please share your ideas as to where to start? Thank you. Bunburry Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to their mistakes.(O.Wilde)
The best one to learn is ADO because it allows you to specify the database location at runtime without playing with ODBC. Also, ADOX allows you to create your own databases from scratch. ADO does tend to bite you in the bum a lot, for example, I found out the hard way that calling MoveFirst() on a recordset with no records crashes pretty damn hard. You might like to search this forum for ADO, I know Hazi and myself have both asked a lot of questions here to get over the initial learning hump and you'll probably save yourself some hassle. Other than that, obviously keep asking questions as you learn. Christian After all, there's nothing wrong with an elite as long as I'm allowed to be part of it!! - Mike Burston Oct 23, 2001
-
ADO requires MDAC to be installed. This comes with Office but is a simple download from Microsoft. I find ADO easier to use than DAO but I haven't used DAO in 4 years. I use ADO in MFC apps, using one of the ADO wrapper classes found on CodeProject. Download some of the ADO classes here on CodeProject and compare them to your DAO code. Michael :-)
Guys I Used DAO for years, but when I Knew ADO I said GUAU. Is for that I made the ADO Classes equal to DAO Classes, for made easy to use ADO for the programmers that want to learn ADO.... Best Regards.... :bob: Chau!!! Carlos Antollini.
-
Sirs, until now I have not used any databases, I just did what any underdeveloped programmer in the stoneage must also have done, namely storing data in house made text files, and reading them from my app. Now that the future has begun I decided to go with it, and I am spiritually prepared to learn. But there are so many of abbreviations like ADO, DAO, ODBC, SQL etc. that I am pretty confused which way to go so that I can learn something useful and on the other hand not to have to deal with the whole universe at once. My data mainly comes from charts, and different engineering databases which rarely have thousands of elements rather less. On the user side I also wanna avoid special requirements, at most MS Office. Could you please share your ideas as to where to start? Thank you. Bunburry Experience is of no ethical value. It is merely the name men give to their mistakes.(O.Wilde)
Hi, Well, I recommend you to use ADO, it´s more or less "modern", quite easy to use, and quite powerful, but that´s only to work wit the data, to visualize it you have to use some ActiveX controls ( for example a free on it´s DbGrid that it´s shipped with VStudio). Here in Codeproject you can find a lot of help on that. An easier to use thing could be ODBC, but is more or less the same job... HTH Braulio