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by Marshall Brain

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Many people seem to shy away from using "real databases" in their applications because they perceive them to be too complicated or confusing to use on a daily basis. It turns out, however, that the CRecordset class makes it extremely easy to interface to a variety of different databases using ODBC. Therefore, you can bring the full power of real databases to bear on even the simplest applications. Often this will improve both the robustness and capacity of the programs you create with little or no effort on your part.

The purpose of this series is to outline the main features of the "Interface Technologies method" for using the CRecordset class in database applications, both in prototyping/development settings and production environments. These techniques have been condensed primarily from internal ITI database applications and therefore represent a set of ideas that have been honed through "trial by fire." Although they may not be perfect from the beauty standpoint, these techniques have the advantage of being reliable and relatively straightforward.

Before reading this series, you need to have a basic understanding of MFC and Visual C++.

This series starts at the beginning, showing you how to create a simple database in Access. You can use any ODBC database (SQL, Excel, DBase, etc.) to create your prototype databases: We use Access because Access database prototypes port very easily to real SQL databases like Sybase or the Microsoft SQL server. Then the series moves on to discuss specific techniques for hooking the database into your dialogs and other application screens. Topics in this series include:

• Part 1: Using Access to prototype databases
• Part 2: Using the CRecordset class
• Part 3: Opening databases
• Part 4: RSA files
• Part 5: Database dialogs
• Part 6: A User’s Guide to the Different Types of Recordsets

If you have additions, comments or suggestions for improving this series, please pass them along. We are always glad to learn new things.