Using ADO`s Record Object with URLs
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The Record object in ADO 2.5 expands the capability of the ADO Object model. If you want to learn how you can use this in your own applications, keep reading.
When ADO 2.5 was introduced, two new items to the ADO Object model were added. While the earlier versions of ADO addressed the operations dealing with relational databases, new necessities drove the enlargement of the applicability of ADO to non-relational, hierarchical data like those in web sites and folder/file systems. Record and Stream objects were born out of these necessities. These additions considerably extended ADO's applicability beyond the well known databases such as MS SQL Server, Oracle, and so forth and provided access for looking into web site directories, file structures with directories, nested subdirectories, and file systems, exchange mail folders (you need OLE DB provider for Microsoft Exchange Server for this), and so on.
This tutorial looks at the Record object and explores how it can be leveraged in an application where you want to access folders in your web server's URL. The next picture shows the position of the Record Object in the ADO hierarchy.

In order to use these objects you need the OLE DB providers. The most appropriate OLE DB provider for opening Record or Stream objects is the OLE DB Provider for Internet Publishing (MSDAIPP). MSDAIPP stands for Microsoft Data Access Component Internet Publishing Provider. The version on this computer is MSDAIPP.dll ( 11.0.5510.0). The file location is C: Program FilesCommon Files SystemOleDB. If you have Microsoft Office 2000 and above, or your operating system is Windows 2000 or Office XP Professional, you should have the file in your system. The MSDAIPP can access folders and files on web servers if the following are supported:
- FrontPage Server Extensions
- Web Extender Client
- Web Distributed Authoring and Versioning
(WebDAV or HTTP-DAV) protocol extension for HTTP
Microsoft Summarized Documentation for ADO 2.8
The ADO 2.8 version will be used in the examples for this tutorial. Here is the Microsoft Document summary for the Record object's various supported properties and methods of this version. This object does not have any Events associated with it. The list below is taken from the MSDN site.
Properties/Collections- ActiveConnection Property
- Fields Collection
- Mode Property
- ParentURL Property
- Properties Collection
- RecordType Property
- Source Property (ADO Record)
- State Property
Methods- Cancel
- Close
- CopyRecord
- DeleteRecord
- GetChildren
- MoveRecord
- Open
Next: Looking at URLs on the Localhost >>
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