ASP Access Data Source Overview 1 (from IIS5.0 document)

Accessing a data source
ActiveX data Object (ADO) is a technology that is both easy to use and extensible, use to add database access to your Web page you can use ADO to write concise and scalable scripts to connect to OLE DB-compliant data sources, such as databases, spreadsheets, sequential data files, or e-mail directories. OLE DB is a system-level programming interface that provides a standard set of COM interfaces to showcase the capabilities of a database management system. With the object model of ADO, you can easily access these interfaces (using scripting languages such as VBScript or JScript) and add database functionality to your WEB application. In addition, you can use ADO to access databases that are compatible with open Database interconnection (ODBC).
If you're a scripting writer who knows a lot about database interconnect, you'll find that the command syntax for ADO is simple and easy to use. If you are an experienced developer, you will appreciate the scalable, high-performance access to a variety of data sources that ADO provides.
For more information about ADO, visit the Microsoft Universal Data Access (UDA) Web site http://www.microsoft.com/data/.
Creating a connection string
The first step in creating a WEB application is to provide ADO with a way to locate and identify the data source. This is done with the connection string, which is a series of semicolon-delimited parameters that define parameters such as the data source provider and the location of the data source. ADO uses a connection string to identify the OLE DB provider and point the provider to the data source. A provider is a component that describes a data source and presents it to the application in the form of a rowset.
The following table lists the OLE DB connection strings for several common data sources: Data source OLE DB connection string
Microsoft Access provider=microsoft.jet.oledb.4.0; Source= point to the physical path to the. mdb file
Microsoft SQL Server Provider=SQLOLEDB.1; Source= point to the path to the database on the server
Oracle provider=msdaora.1; Source= point to the path to the database on the server
Microsoft indexing Service provider=msidxs.1; Source= point to File path
To provide backward compatibility, the ODBC OLE DB provider supports ODBC connection string syntax. The following table lists the commonly used ODBC connection strings: Data source driver ODBC connection string
Microsoft Access Driver={microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)};D bq= the physical path to the. mdb file
SQL Serverr driver={sql Server}; Server= point to the server path
Oracle Driver={microsoft ODBC for Oracle}; Server= point to the server path
Microsoft Excel driver={microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)};D bq= the physical path to the. xls file; DriverID =278
Microsoft Excel driver={microsoft Excel Driver (*.xls)};D bq= the physical path to the. xls file; driverid=790