Accessing ODBC Data with a Microsoft Jet Workspace

The following capabilities are supported in Microsoft Jet workspaces, but not in ODBCDirect workspaces:

• Updatable Joins You can generally update data in Recordset objects based on multiple-table joins. Only certain multiple-table joins in ODBCDirect are updatable. For example, for a one-to-many join in ODBCDirect, users will receive errors if they attempt to update the same primary key value from two different records at the same time.
  
  
• Support for Linked Tables You can store persistent links to server data in a local Microsoft Jet database. When you link a table, you can cache information about the table’s structure, including field and index information, in your local database. The next time you access that table, the connection is quicker because you don’t need to retrieve the structural information from the data source again.
  
  
• Support for the Find Methods You can use the FindFirst, FindNext, FindPrevious, and FindLast methods with Recordset objects in a Microsoft Jet workspace.
  
  
• Partial Failures of Update Queries You can set the FailOnError property of an update query so that if the query fails for some reason, the query stops, giving you the opportunity to decide whether or not you want to commit the changes made up to the point of failure.

  See Also For more information about the FailOnError property, search the Microsoft Access Help index for “FailOnError property” and the DAO Help index for “Execute method.”

• User-Defined Properties You can customize DAO objects by adding persistent properties to existing objects. For example, you can add a Description property to an object so that you can store descriptive text about the object.

  See Also For more information about user-defined properties, see “Types of Properties” in Chapter 2, “Introducing Data Access Objects.”

• Crosstab Queries You can use the SQL TRANSFORM statement to create crosstab queries that summarize data.

  See Also For more information, see Chapter 4, “Queries.”

• Heterogeneous Data Access You can work with server data, native Microsoft Jet database (.mdb file) data, and external installable ISAM data such as FoxPro, Paradox, and dBASE data. You can perform joins on tables in different data sources.

  See Also For more information, see Chapter 8, “Accessing External Data.”

• Modify Database Structure Using DAO You can use DAO to perform operations that affect the structure of your database. For example, you can create, delete, and modify tables.

  See Also For more information, see Chapter 3, “Data Definition and Integrity.”

• Form and Control Binding If your application requires that forms or controls be bound to data in an ODBC data source, you must use Microsoft Jet. Data accessed within an ODBCDirect workspace cannot be bound to forms or controls because ODBCDirect does not support linked tables.