MDAC 2.5 SDK - OLE DB Testing

Generating Initialization Files Using the TableDump Utility

The TableDump utility creates and obtains all information from the provider needed to run your test for the level of conformance of that provider.

Many differences, limitations, and issues are unique to each provider. It is difficult to develop complete OLE DB conformance tests that are able to handle the broad range of OLE DB providers.

Following are some of the major issues:

• A provider might have its own provider-specific initialization properties. Standard initialization properties from the Initialization property group can be specified on the connection string.
  
  
• Some providers are read-only.
  
  
• Some providers do not allow table creation.
  
  
• A provider might have its own unique CommandText (if you are testing commands).

To ensure that data is sent and received correctly, the data format must be identified. The TableDump utility provides an initialization file that can be used by all conformance tests. This file contains all necessary information to initialize the provider, understand the provider's command syntax if available, confirm that the data retrieved is correct, and verify all other aspects of the provider meeting a particular conformance level.