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lthough Dreamweaver can be used to build any sort of Web appli-
cation, one of its biggest strengths is its capability to present and
manage dynamically accessed data. In other words, many designers
use Dreamweaver to display and alter information from a database on the
Web. But to handle that information, you must first establish a connec-
tion between the Web page and the desired data source and then you must
define a selection of records from that data source.
Dreamweaver is adept at handling both of these pieces. You can connect to
virtually any data source—databases, spreadsheets, and even standard text
files—in a number of different ways. Dreamweaver offers a variety of con-
nection types, ranging from the simplest with the highest overhead, DSN
(Data Source Name), to the more complex, but most efficient, OLE DB. This
chapter explains how the connections are made in Dreamweaver and why
some are more robust than others.
After you have established a connection and your Web page is ready to
communicate with your data source, you must create a recordset. You can
think of a recordset as the key topic of conversation in a dialogue between
a Web application and a data source. It is the result of a query made to the
database based on your specifications.
For most basic recordsets, Dreamweaver provides a point-and-click inter-
face. You can also construct more advanced recordsets t ...