Trying to Understand .ASP and Database Access

[kophjager]

Hello all,
I have been confused for a few days now trying to understand the flow of information between web pages and databases. I've been looking into developing ASP pages and interacting with an Access database. I need to do this on IIS 5.0 and want to code my connection and queries to the database in whatever language. I have been reading things about ADO and how it interacts with another layer that then interacts with the database. I know I could use ADO easily enough, but I want to go further and understand it all. What I would like to know is if there is a way for me to write code directly at the database access level, from asp web pages, without using any API's and learn about it.
I am not sure if this is the forum I should be in, so I apologize if I am in error. If any one could provide me any help I would greatly appreciate it. Thank you.

 

[baddos]

VBScript won't let you create your own database driver if that's what you are asking. However, with ADO you can control the database through SQL commands and not only ADO methods.

 

[ToddWW]

ADO is your easiest. All you need is the appropriate ODBC or OLEDB driver on your server and you're off and running. Plenty of posts in this forum (use the search utility) that will show you how to make database connections with an Access database through ADO. Once your connected to the database, as baddos explained, all you need to know is SQL which will pretty much allow you to do anything you want in an Access database that you can do with an Access client directly including creating tables, permissions, etc.. I don't know the full capabilities of Access so you'll need to do some research on it.

ToddWW

 

[kophjager]

From what I have been reading, ADO and ODBC are both object based API's. I know ADO is probably much, much easier to use, but I would like to learn how to program at a closesr level to the database. That's I guess what I am looking for iis ODBC information. I was wondering if anyone knew how to get any information for using the ODBC objects for beginners?

 

[ToddWW]

Goto

http://www.microsoft.com

Knowledge Base OR msdn.microsoft.com and search for MDAC (Microsoft Data Access Components). You won't find a better source of information for ODBC and OLEDB drivers for Microsoft and Non-Microsoft data containers.

ToddWW

 

[baddos]

I would much rather recommend going w/ ADO. You'll find it's fairly easy to learn is and very fast. ODBC is the common driver for most all databases. It is slower than ADO -> OLEDB.

 

[kophjager]

Thanks ToddWW and baddos, I think I am going to just try and develop with ADO. From what I can see it does seem to be a little better and the asp.net seems to use ADO also. Thanks all for the insight.