[AccessD] ODBC instead of DAO?

Stuart McLachlan stuart at lexacorp.com.pg
Mon Oct 17 17:46:17 CDT 2022


It certainly does NOT apply across the board.

That is in a section talking about developing  MFC classes in  C## which is a specific 
environment. It is not referring to working in MS Access.  DAO is still  the foundation on 
which all accdb files are based.

It is  probably "considered obsolete" when developing MFC applications in C## because 
DAO is not a separate component any more, it is part of ACE (ACEDAO).

They are correct to state that DAO 3.6 was the final version, but what they don't mention is 
that while there used to be  a DAO360.dll  file,  the same capabilities are now in the  
ACEDAO.dll file.

FWIW, 
The ACEDAO library still uses exactly the same set of CLSID for DAO objects that DAO360 
did so it is still entirely usable from other programming environments with an appropriate 
API include file.

ODBC is a good generic method of accessing data (OPEN DataBase Connectivity) but it is 
slower and has less capabilities than DAO when working with Access files.



On 17 Oct 2022 at 15:56, Arthur Fuller wrote:

> Reading the docs at Microsoft Learn, I came across a notice that DAO
> is now considered obsolete, and the suggestion that for new apps, we
> should use ODBC classes instead. The page begins with this paragraph:
> 
> DAO is used with Access databases and is supported through Office
> 2013. DAO 3.6 is the final version, and it is considered obsolete.
> 
> Further down the page is this notice:
> 
> Programs that use DAO databases will have at least a CDaoDatabase
> object and a CDaoRecordset object.
> 
>  Note
> 
> The Visual C++ environment and wizards no longer support DAO (although
> the DAO classes are included and you can still use them). Microsoft
> recommends that you use ODBC for new MFC projects. You should only use
> DAO in maintaining existing applications. The note is directed at C++
> programmers, but does it apply across the board?
> 
> Does it also mean that ADO is obsolete as well?
> 
> Have any of you switched from DAO|ADO to the ODBC classes? If so, how
> painful is it? Will the ODBC classes do everything that DAO and ADO
> can do?
> 
> -- 
> Arthur
> -- 
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> 




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