ActiveX Data Objects

Microsoft's ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) is a set of Component Object Model (COM) objects for accessing data sources. A part of MDAC, it provides a middleware layer between programming languages and OLE DB (a means of accessing data stores, whether they be databases or otherwise, in a uniform manner). ADO allows a developer to write programs that access data without knowing how the database is implemented. She must be aware of the database for connection only. No knowledge of SQL is required to access a database when using ADO, although one can use ADO to directly execute SQL commands. The disadvantage of the latter is that it introduces a dependency upon the type of database used.

ADO is positioned as a successor to Microsoft's earlier object layers for accessing data sources, including RDO (Remote Data Objects) and DAO (Data Access Objects). ADO was introduced by Microsoft in October 1996.

Read more about ActiveX Data Objects:  Internals, ADO Collections, ADO Objects, Basic Usage, Software Support

Famous quotes containing the words data and/or objects:

    To write it, it took three months; to conceive it three minutes; to collect the data in it—all my life.
    F. Scott Fitzgerald (1896–1940)

    We have good reason to believe that memories of early childhood do not persist in consciousness because of the absence or fragmentary character of language covering this period. Words serve as fixatives for mental images. . . . Even at the end of the second year of life when word tags exist for a number of objects in the child’s life, these words are discrete and do not yet bind together the parts of an experience or organize them in a way that can produce a coherent memory.
    Selma H. Fraiberg (20th century)