ADO and SQL Server
Creating an ADO Application
The following components and functions are part of the ADO architecture.
| Component | Function |
|---|---|
| Application | Calls ADO objects, collections, methods, and properties to communicate with a data source. Submits SQL statements, and processes result sets. |
| ADO | Manages communication between an application and the OLE DB provider used by the application. |
| OLE DB provider | Processes all ADO calls from the application, connects to a data source, passes SQL statements from the application to the data source, and returns results to the application. |
| Data source | Contains the information used by a provider to access a specific instance of data in a DBMS. |
An application that uses ADO to communicate with Microsoft® SQL Server™ 2000 performs the following tasks:
- Connects with a data source.
- Sends SQL statements to the data source.
- Processes the results of statements from the data source.
- Processes errors and messages.
- Terminates the connection to the data source.
A more complex application written using ADO can also perform the following tasks:
- Use cursors to control location in a result set.
- Execute stored procedures on a server.
- Execute user-defined functions on a server.
- Manage queries that generate multiple result sets.
- Request commit or rollback operations for transaction control.
- Perform catalog operations to inquire about the attributes of a result set.
- Manage long data (text, ntext, and image columns) operations.
- Perform XML operations using XPath queries, annotated schemas, and Transact-SQL extensions such as FOR XML and OpenXML.
For more information, see Using ADO in Different Development Environments.