A Brief Overview of DAO

MFC includes database classes for programming with Data Access Objects (DAO). DAO is an application programming interface (API) based on OLE.

Suggested Reading in the Visual C++ Programmer’s Guide

• Overview: Creating a Program That Supports a Database
  
  
• DAO and MFC
  
  
• Data Access Objects (DAO)
  
  
• DAO Collections
  
  
• DAO: Writing a Database Application
  
  
• DAO: Database Tasks

In general, the DAO database classes offer more complete database functionality than the ODBC database classes, which were first introduced in MFC 2.5.

DAO supplies a hierarchical set of objects that use the Microsoft Jet database engine to access data and database structure in:

• Microsoft Access (.MDB) databases.
  
  
• ODBC data sources, using an ODBC driver.
  
  
• Installable ISAM databases, such as dBASE, Paradox, and FoxPro which the database engine can read directly.

DAO can access other types of databases through ODBC.

Not all DAO objects are exposed in MFC, although most of the DAO functionality is available. You can make direct calls to DAO, and the DAO Software Development Kit (SDK) and DAO Help are included with Visual C++ version 5.0.

Data Access Objects in MFC

MFC encapsulates the following DAO objects (listed in hierarchical order).

• Workspace
  
  
• Database
  
  
• TableDef
  
  
• QueryDef
  
  
• RecordSet
  
  
• Exceptions