What does ADO mean in COMPUTING

ActiveX Data Objects (ADO) is an object-oriented programming interface that enables applications to access data sources. It allows developers to create distributed applications and interact with a variety of data sources including relational databases, non-relational databases, spreadsheets, and flat files. ADO can be used from many different programming languages such as C++, VBScript, Visual Basic for Applications (VBA), JavaScript, and JScript.

Using ADO offers a number of advantages over traditional database access methods. By providing an object-oriented programming interface along with support for multiple data sources and technology standards for distributed computing, ADO increases developer flexibility when creating enterprise applications. This in turn reduces development time and cost. Additionally, by offering enhanced scalability and performance features, applications developed with ADO may offer improved execution times compared to other data access methods.

In order to use ADO in your application you must first download the libraries required for your targeted platform (e.g., Windows or web). Once downloaded you must add the library reference to your project so that it can be used within the application code. After completing those steps you can then start writing your code which would typically involve creating an instance of the appropriate connection class before using it to execute commands against your chosen data source (e.g., SQL Server).

You can connect to a data source using several different techniques depending on the type of data source and technology standard supported by the target system being accessed. Commonly used techniques include establishing an ODBC connection for relational databases or OLE DB connections for non-relational databases such as Microsoft Access or Excel Spreadsheets. Additional types of connections such as File System Connectors are available depending on the specific requirements of your application.

A Recordset is an object provided by ADO that enables developers to manipulate cached sets of records from a specified data source directly within their codebase. By encapsulating all dataset related activities within the recordset object a range of features such as sorting, filtering, cursors etc are made available which were previously difficult or impossible without complex SQL statements.

The Command Object provides developers with an easier way to execute SQL statements against their chosen data source than if they were doing it manually themselves. This eliminates some complexity when dealing with larger datasets and makes parameterised queries easier than if done manually.

Connection objects enable developers to make changes directly within their existing dataset without having write any additional lines of code by utilising properties exposed through this object such as command timeout values, network packet size etc.