MFC Database Documentation

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The MFC documentation for DAO and ODBC classes consists of the components listed in the following table:

MFC Database Documentation

For documentation on...	See...
DAO database tutorial	Data Access Objects (DAO) Tutorial in Tutorials
ODBC database tutorial	Creating a Database Application in Tutorials
Classes for both DAO and ODBC	The class name in the Class Library Reference
Global functions and macros for both DAO and ODBC	The function or macro name in the Class Library Reference
Programming with the MFC DAO classes	The article DAO and MFC
Programming with the MFC ODBC classes	The article ODBC and MFC
Technical notes for both DAO and ODBC	MFC Technical Notes
Sample applications	MFC Samples

MFC Documentation and DAO Documentation

Throughout the MFC documentation for the MFC DAO classes, you'll find references to topics in the DAO SDK documentation, included in the online documentation. Because MFC encapsulates, or "wraps," DAO, the MFC documentation:

Focuses on MFC and how it differs from the underlying DAO implementation.
Points you to the DAO SDK Help topics for the underlying details. These cross references are always worded as “topic X in DAO Help.”
Points out differences where MFC does things differently from the way DAO does them. MFC doesn't wrap all of DAO. For example, MFC doesn't supply objects for DAO's security functionality.

Important The DAO SDK help is a separate help file. There are no hypertext links from this documentation to DAO help in this version of Visual C++.

Note You might have to do some translating when you are browsing topics in DAO SDK Help. Examples in the primary DAO SDK documentation are written in the Basic programming language, not C++. (But the DAO SDK supplies a set of C++ examples that don’t use MFC.) For guidance, see the examples that appear in these articles and the MFC DAO sample applications, listed under Visual C++ Programming Guide/Samples/MFC Samples/Databases (ODBC and DAO) in the documentation.

MFC Documentation and ODBC Documentation

The MFC documentation for the MFC ODBC classes is organized differently. The MFC ODBC classes supply a high-level abstraction that rests on ODBC rather than a "wrapper" of the ODBC API. Therefore, the two documentation sets are less connected than are the MFC and DAO documentation sets. The ODBC documentation uses the C language, which is much closer to C++ than is Basic.