May 2002
Beginner to intermediate
560 pages
11h 36m
English
Content preview from Essential ADO.NETBecome an O’Reilly member and get unlimited access to this title plus top books and audiobooks from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers, thousands of courses curated by job role, 150+ live events each month,
Start your free trial
8.2. Staying with OLE DB: A Summary of OLE DB Concepts
Before we discuss the option of retaining an existing OLE DB provider, it is helpful to explain the major concepts of the OLE DB object model.
The OLE DB object model consists of a series of well-defined abstract objects called cotypes and a set of well-factored interfaces for each cotype. To implement a provider, only three cotypes are required, and each cotype (including optional cotypes) has required and optional interfaces.
A set of optional, special-purpose cotypes are individually implemented at the provider's discretion. For example, the OLE DB Command cotype is optional, required only if the provider supports a command language. If a provider implements the Command cotype, there is ...