Introducing OLE DB

OLE DB is an open specification for accessing various types of data from different stores in a uniform way. It uses a set of COM interfaces for accessing and manipulating different types of data. The interfaces are available from various database providers.

OLE DB introduces the concept of consumer - provider. A consumer is a client application that uses or 'consumes' an OLE DB interface. A provider is a component that exposes an OLE DB interface.

A typical provider can retrieve data from a particular data store and expose the data to a consumer in tabular form.

OraOLEDB: OLE DB and Oracle Large Object (LOB) Support

OraOLEDB is an OLE DB provider for Oracle. it offers high performance and efficient access to Oracle data including LOBs. It also allows updates to certain LOB types.

The following LOB types are supported by OraOLEDB:

• For Persistent LOBs. READ/WRITE through the rowset.

• For BFILEs. READ-ONLY through the rowset.

• Temporary LOBs are not supported through the rowset.

Rowset Object

Rowset is an OLE DB object that provides READ/WRITE capability to data obtained by executing an SQL SELECT statement or a stored procedure that returns a REF Cursor.

BFILEs can be part of the rowset but they are read-only.

See Also: The Oracle Provider for OLE DB User's Guide at: http://otn.oracle.com/tech/nt/ole_db