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Designing a Web Page That Accesses a Database

Designing a Web Page That Accesses a Database

Question:
I am trying to create a site that will take user input via forms, query a database, and return results to the user. I’ve been reading a ton of HTML books and have learned how to create forms, but I want to know how to get them to interact with my Microsoft Access database. Is there an easy way to connect my Web site with Microsoft Access?

Answer:
The ability to access a database via the Web must be supported by the Web server software that you are using. If your Web server software is Internet Information Server (IIS) 3.0 (with Active Server Pages and ActiveX Data Objects installed) or IIS 4.0, you can use Active Server Pages to connect to your database easily.

The following code assumes that you have set up an ODBC data source name (DSN) called MyAccessDatbase in the Windows Control Panel applet. Keep in mind that this is not the only way to get to the data?each method has its pros and cons. This particular code is very short and easy to read and understand, but becomes less efficient the more times it is called in a single instance of an application.

Const adOpenKeyset = 1Const adLockOptimistic = 3  Set rs = Server.CreateObject ("ADODB.Recordset")rs.Open "Select * from students", "DSN=MyAccessDatbase;UID=Admin;PWD", _	adOpenKeyset, adLockOptimistic 

After this code executes, you will have a recordset that you can use to put data on your Web page. You can access the individual fields in a recordset using the following syntax.

rs("MyField1")rs("MyField2")

This code should enable you to retrieve data from a database into your Web page. Happy coding!

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