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Mayukh's World: Python Tutorials: ADO and Python Tuesday, May 13, 2008
Python and ADO
  • 0. Introduction
  • 1. What is ADO
  • 2. Basic Objects
  • 3. Using Parameters
  • 4. ADO/Python Basics
  • 5. Connection Object
  • 6. RecordSet Object
  • 7. Command Object
  • 8. More Command Fun
  • 9. Command and Procs
  • 10. Creating Params
  • 11. Links and Credits
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    Chapter 1: What is ADO?

    ActiveX Data Objects or ADO, as it is more popularly known, is a Microsoft technology that they introduced during the last quarter of 1996. Originally, it was intended to provide a database independent method of accessing data from a wide range of databases. This means you can use the same functions whether you are using Access, Microsoft SQL Server, Sybase, Oracle etc. as your database engine. Microsoft had already pioneered the ODBC (Object DataBase Connectivity) interface standard years ago and it was widely used in the industry, but it was outdated and the cracks were beginning to show. Hence, Microsoft went for a new programming standard and thus ADO was born.
    Some other languages, notably Perl and Delphi, also provide database independent methods of accessing data via their DBI or BDE interfaces. However, ADO was also intended to be somewhat language independent, provided your language had support for COM interfaces. Thus, you can use ADO with Python, Delphi, VB, ASP, Visual C++, any .NET language, Borland C++ Builder etc. Originally ADO was only intended to work with relational databases, but its role has been enhanced in recent years. With version 2.5, ADO also gained the capability of dealing with folders, e-mail messages, text files etc. With version 2.7 came the ability to work with XML and engines like SQL Server 2000. This tutorial will deal with using ADO to talk to databases alone and leave the other stuff for another article perhaps.
    One disadvantage of ADO is that its usage is currently restricted to Microsoft operating systems (Windows 98, 2000, ME, XP etc.) alone. Their earlier ODBC standard was gradually accepted by other vendors and thus you can find ODBC drivers for UNIX platforms as well. Hopefully the ADO model will move in that direction one day. For now though, it means that a client program that uses ADO can only run on Windows. However, the database server that the client program connects to, can run on any platform. Hence, this is not a severe issue because this is the setup that most sites have -- (i.e.) client machines running on Windows connecting to a database server that may be running on Windows, *NIX or whatever.

    Short Summary
    Advantages
    • Designed to be database independent.
    • Language independent, provided language has a COM interface. Python, Perl, Visual Basic, Visual C++, Delphi, ASP, C++ Builder, Ruby, Java, C# and other .NET languages all support COM interfaces and can thus use ADO.
    • Wide variety of drivers available. You can use ADO to talk to databases such as:
      • Access
      • Microsoft SQL Server
      • Oracle
      • MySQL
      • Postgres SQL
      • Sybase
      • Firebird
      • Interbase
      • DB2
    • Newer ADO versions can interface with XML, folders on disk, Microsoft Excel, Microsoft Outlook etc.
    Disadvantages
    • A program that uses ADO to connect to the database can only be on a Microsoft operating system currently. The database itself can be on a non-microsoft platform though. In fact, the MySQL examples in this tutorial were executed by the author from a Windows 2000 Pro client computer connecting to a Linux server running MySQL.
    Now that you have a basic idea of what ADO is and what it can do for you, we will begin to explore the various objects in the next chapter.


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