Making a ClientDataSet Talk to an MS Access Database 1

I purchased Cary Jensen's book called Delphi in Depth: ClientDataSets a couple weeks ago. It's a great book filled with lots of nuggets. You can only read so much before you need to practice by doing. All of Cary's examples use the DBDEMOS database that comes with Delphi.

So, I have decided to port these examples over so they talk to a MS Access database. I figure this is a great way to learn. For me this is a pain-stakingly slow process, because I want to learn (I mean really learn) how to do this well.

I have just gotten to page 53 of Chapter 3 and decided to blog about what I've done so far.

I substituted the BDE.TTable for a dbGo.TADOTable. I also had to use a dbGo.TADOConnection. The TADOConnection comes with a built in Connection String Builder which works very well.

Anyway, here's where the chicken and the egg thing come into play. In order for this to work you need an MS Access database. So, I created a very simple database using different table names from the DBDEMOS so I can learn how to wire everything up properly.

I set set the TADOConnection.Connected property to true so I can see stuff happening in the IDE. I decided to add a couple more tables to my MS Access database. With my project loaded in the IDE I attempted to open my MS Access database by doubl-clicking on the mdb file... Well, my computer hung. I had to do a hard reboot. Keep this in mind if you go back and forth between Delphi and MS Access.


Another thing that was weird. I tried applying the updates ClientDataSet1.ApplyUpdates(-1); and I got the following error:









So, again Jensen to the rescue. On page 52 he talks about using the ResolveToDataSet property of the DataSetProvider component. I set this property to True and now my updates from with my Delphi application are showing up in the MS Access database.

I'm off to learn some more. I'll share anything that's good to know along the way.

Semper Fi
Gunny Mike