Streams and XML in ADO 2.5

Requirements

This sample requires Visual Basic 6.0 and Active Data Objects (ADO) 2.5. It can be run under Windows 98, Windows NT 4.0, or Windows 2000. ADO 2.5 ships with Windows 2000 and can also be downloaded from Universal Data Access Online .

Description

This sample demonstrates how to use the new Stream object in ADO 2.5 to read a recordset into XML and vice versa. A Stream object provides the means to read, write, and manage the binary stream of bytes or text that comprise a file or message stream. In ADO 2.1 you can save a recordset to XML that is persisted to disk using the Save method and the adPersistXML option.

rst.Save "pubs.xml", adPersistXML

You can open a recordset based on the XML file with the Open method.

rst.Open "pubs.xml"

In ADO 2.5 you can use the Stream object to work with XML without having to write it to disk first. The Stream object exists in memory. In this sample the contents of a recordset are converted to XML and then written to the Stream object, which is named st here.

rs.Save st, adPersistXML

Just as a recordset can be opened from an XML file, it can also be opened based on the XML in a Stream.

rs.Open st