Maria Cheska M.
Juatchon
BSCS - 3
A Data Control Language (DCL) is a computer
language and a subset of SQL, used to control access
to data in a database.
Examples of DCL commands include:
• GRANT to allow specified users to perform
specified tasks.
• REVOKE to cancel previously granted or
denied permissions.
The following privileges can be GRANTED TO or
REVOKED FROM a user or role:
• CONNECT
• SELECT
• INSERT
• UPDATE
• DELETE
• EXECUTE
• USAGE
InOracle, executing a DCL command issues an implicit
commit.
In PostgreSQL, executing DCL is transactional, and can
be rolled back.
Reference:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Data_Cont
rol_Language
The Visual Basic 6.0 Data control is used as a
mechanism for binding controls to a database using DAO.
Visual Basic 2005 has no equivalent for the Data control;
the data-binding architecture has changed and DAO is no
longer supported. For more information, see Data
Access for Visual Basic 6.0 Users.
The Data control also provides an interface for navigating
data, with buttons for moving back and forth through rows
in a database table. Visual Basic 2005 has an equivalent
control, the BindingNavigator control, which also
contains buttons for adding and deleting rows.
Reference:http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-
us/library/tw9xakbf%28VS.80%29.aspx
The Visual Basic Data Control can be used to write
VB programs that can easily manipulate databases
created with Microsoft Access, FoxPro, dBase, Paradox,
Btrieve, Excel, or any ODBC*-compliant database, such
as Oracle and SQL Server databases. (*Open DataBase
Connectivity). Visual Basic's native database format is
Access, and the Access "Jet" Database Engine is included
with VB.
The Data Control has two key properties: DatabaseName
is the filename of a compatible database. RecordSource is
the name of a table in the database, or the result of a SQL
(Structured Query Language) query.
Many VB controls are "data-aware", and can be "bound" to
the Data Control. That is, as you move from record to
record using the Data Control, the bound controls show
you the field contents of each record. Bound controls
generally have a DataSource property, which should be
the name of the Data Control, and a DataField property,
which is the name of the field you want displayed in that
control.
Creating a Database
Visual Basic uses the Microsoft Access database engine.
Use Microsoft Access to create a new database, or use
the Data Manager application provided with Visual Basic.
You can launch Data Manager directly from VB, from the
Add-Ins menu.
You can also use databases created with dBase III, dBase
IV, FoxPro 2.0 or 2.5, Paradox, Btrieve, Excel, or any
ODBC-registered source. To use an option other than
Access, you need to set the Connect property for the Data
Control. For details, search Visual Basic's Help file for the
Connect Property.
Office 2000 note:
Visual Basic is not easily compatible with Access 2000's
database format. If you create a database using Access
2000, one of the menu items in Access is "Save As
Previous Version". Use that to save in Office 97 format.
There IS a way to open Access 2000 databases in VB, but
it involves extra code that will make these first two
database lessons more cumbersome. For those who need
the secret, the notes are at the very bottom of this page.
Trying to use Visual Data Manager
Note: the Data Manager that came with VB3 had a few
flaws. Microsoft did a much better job with the new Data
Manager in VB4. However, they seem to have lost their
minds with the VB5 version. Its interface is "interesting", to
put it most mildly.
1. Launch Visual Data Manager from the VB Add-
Ins menu.
2. Choose File/New..., choose Access 7.0, and give
the new database a name.
3. Right-click in the Database Window. (There
appears to be no other way to do this, nor any
instructions that would lead you to this. I
accidentally found it when I was about to give
up!) Click New Table in the pop-up menu. In the
resulting dialog box, give the new table a name.
4. Click the Add Field button. Enter a field name and
field type. Click the Okay button to add the new
field to the list. Keep repeating for a few more
fields. When done, click Close to stop adding
fields and then close the table dialog.
5. In the Database Window, you'll see the name of
your new table. Double-click to open the table so
you can add records to the table. (That was
obvious, wasn't it? Again there appears to be no
other way to get to this point. If you single-click,
you just see a list of properties that are mostly
 meaningless to you at this point.) You can come
back and add more records any time.
6. Exit VisData. You now have a database file.
Phew!
Quick Start with the Data Control
1. To use a Data Control, first select the
control from the toolbox and draw it on your form.
Its default name is Data1, which we'll use in the
examples below.
2. In the properties window, set the DatabaseName
property to the filename of the database you
want. Click on the ellipsis button (...) to use a "file
open" dialog.
3. Set the RecordSource property to the name of a
database table within the database you selected.
If you've already selected a database as in step
2, a drop-down list of choices will be provided.
4. Put a Text Box on your form. (You can also use
other data-aware controls, such as CheckBoxes,
Labels, Image controls, and PictureBoxes.)
5. Set the DataSource property for the text box to
Data1.
6. Set the DataField property for the text box to the
field you wish to display. If steps 2-5 have been
accomplished with a valid database, a drop-down
list of choices will be provided.
7. You may wish to put a Label control in front of the
text box with the fieldname selected in step 6.
8. Repeat steps 4-7 for each field you wish to
display.
9. Run your application.
Another Way: Grid View
1. Start a new project and put a Data
Control on the form
2. Set the DatabaseName property of Data1
3. Set the RecordSource property
4. From the Project menu, choose Components.
Check either the Microsoft FlexGrid control or the
Microsoft DataBound Grid control. The FlexGrid
is read-only, but it has features such as data-
pivoting. The DataBound Grid control allows the
user to edit its fields.
5. Put a DBGrid or FlexGrid control on your
form. Make it fairly large.
6. Set the DataSource property of the grid to Data1
7. Run your program
Have you noticed that we have yet to write ANY code?
The Data Control's RecordSource and
RecordSet Properties
The RecordSource tells where the data will come from.
You can think of the Recordset property as the actual data
that you've requested using the RecordSource.
The RecordSource can be the name of a table in a
database, the name of an Access database query, or the
text of a SQL query. If you change the RecordSource at
run-time, you must use the method Data1.Refresh to
actually go out and get the data and assign it to the
RecordSet.
Once you have a RecordSet, you can use the following
methods in your program:
RecordSet Methods
Data1.RecordSet.AddNew
adds a new record to the recordset
Data1.RecordSet.Delete
deletes the current record
Data1.RecordSet.MoveNext
moves to the next record in the recordset
Data1.RecordSet.MovePrevious
moves to the previous record
Data1.RecordSet.MoveFirst
moves to the first record
Data1.RecordSet.MoveLast
moves to the last record
Data1.UpdateRecord
saves a changed record. This is also done
automatically when you use any of the Move
methods. With VB6, this is also done automatically
when the control is unloaded (when your
application exits).
RecordSet Properties
Data1.RecordSet.EOF
True if MoveNext has moved us past the last
record
Data1.RecordSet.BOF
True if MovePrevious has moved us in front of the
first record
Data1.RecordSet.RecordCount
The number of records in the RecordSet. This is
accurate with small RecordSets. For large
RecordSets you may have to perform a MoveLast
to get this actual value.
Data1.RecordSet.AbsolutePosition
The number of the current record in the RecordSet.
Starts at zero. This property does not appear to be
reliable in VB6. I put code to display this in the
Data Control's Reposition event, and sometimes it
worked, sometimes it gave odd results.
Data1.RecordSet!fieldname
The contents of a specific field in the current record
of the RecordSet. Replace fieldname with the valid
name of a field.
Yet Another (Bad) Way to Get Started:
The Dataform Designer
Visual Basic 4 provided one other way to generate the
beginning of a database application: the Dataform
Designer. It automatically creates a form, similar to what
we created with the first example, and includes some code
for adding and deleting records. However, you should plan
to make some code modifications if you use this.
In Visual Basic 5, they've taken this component and put it
in .... VisData. Yikes! Read on to the last paragraph of this
section before you spend a lot of time with this: the code
generated by Dataform Designer has serious flaws in both
VB4 and VB5!
 1. From the Add-Ins menu, choose Visual Data
Manager again.
2. In Visual Data Manager, choose File/Open
Database, and open a database file, such as the
one you created a few minutes ago.
3. In the Utility menu, choose DataForm Designer...
4. Fill in a name for your form at the top of the
Dataform Designer dialog, and set the
RecordSource to a (the) table in your database.
5. Click the >> button to add all fields to this form.
6. Click on Build the Form. When it is done, Close
the dialog.
If you set this form to be your startup form (in VB5, Project
menu/Project Properties/General/Startup Object), you can
now run the program!
If you inspect the code, you will find that the Dataform
Designer created event procedures for clicking each of the
five command buttons, plus procedures for the events
Data1_Error, Data1_Reposition, and Data1_Validate.
Unfortunately, their code allows the user to easily crash
the program, and the Update button is very misleading.
(Update usually occurs whether you click it or not!). I
recommend deleting the Refresh and Update buttons,
altering the code for the cmdAdd and cmdDelete click
events, and adding Form_Load and Form_Unload events.
The recommended code is given a few sections below.
Data Control Events: Error, Reposition,
Validate
The Error event handles any error that occurs with the
database. Use this event to code what you want to happen
when an error occurs.
The Reposition event occurs when the user moves to
another record in the RecordSet.
The Validate event occurs prior to updates, either
because of moving to another record or explicitly asking
for an update to occur. Use this event to do any validation
on any of your form fields prior to writing to the database.
If a field is invalid, you can cancel the update and the
action that caused it by setting Action=0 and Save=False.
Basic Code for the Data Control
Although browsing and editing require no code, you must
write code to add and delete records. Furthermore, you
should add a couple lines of code in your Form_Load
event to avoid an empty Recordset.
A problem that has plagued VB from the original database
version is how it handles "no current record". There are
several situations where your "form" can be blank. It
appears to be an empty record or a record in which you
can enter data, but it isn't! There's no current record
displayed. Information you type won't be saved, and trying
a "delete" will crash your program. It's important to avoid
those situations.
Before VB6, when adding a record, if you didn't
immediately UpdateRecord, the user could crash the
program by clicking Delete. They changed that in VB6.
Now the program doesn't crash.... instead you wind up
deleting some other record!
Here is safe code for adding and deleting. The only issue
you may have is if your database has required fields.
Before you use the UpdateRecord command, you should
assign default data to those fields. Otherwise, you must
use an alternate method for adding a new record.
The code below assumes you have Command Buttons for
Add and Delete.
Private Sub cmdAdd_Click()
' Add a blank record and save it so it is the current
record. It gets put at the end.
Data1.RecordSet.AddNew
' Put code here if you have required fields in your
database. Assign default values.
Data1.UpdateRecord
Data1.Recordset.MoveLast
End Sub
Private Sub cmdDelete_Click()
Data1.RecordSet.Delete
' Now attempt to move forward to a valid record:
Data1.RecordSet.MoveNext
' But if we just deleted the Last record, we need to move
back instead:
If Data1.RecordSet.EOF Then
Data1.RecordSet.MovePrevious
' Now check to see if we've moved off the front...
' if so, we've just deleted the ONLY record! So add a
new one...
If Data1.RecordSet.BOF Then
Data1.RecordSet.AddNew
Data1.UpdateRecord
Data1.Recordset.MoveLast
End If
End If
End Sub
Private Sub Form_Unload()
' add the following to Form_Unload to make sure any
last changes are saved:
Data1.UpdateRecord
End Sub
This "UpdateRecord" in the Form_Unload event may not
be necessary in VB6. In earlier versions it was needed,
but the VB6 Data Control appears to automatically update
the last record when you exit the program.
If you have an Exit button, or a File menu with the Exit
option (you should!), you should use the line "Unload Me"
to exit your program. In earlier programs it did not matter if
we used the other choice: "End". Now it does.
DatabaseName and Form_Load
There are two things you should add to Form_Load. First,
when you are done editing the properties of the controls
on your form, you should go back to the Data Control and
set the DatabaseName property to blank. While setting the
DatabaseName property makes it convenient at design-
time (table and field names in the database automatically
show in drop-down lists), the path and filename for the
database get written to your EXE file unless you clear
DatabaseName. If your database is in a directory called
"C:\VBPROGS\DATATEST", when you install your EXE on
someone else's machine, it will look on their hard disk for
that same directory name!
The better way is to clear DatabaseName prior to making
your EXE, install your database file into the same directory
as your EXE file, and use App.Path to set the
DatabaseName at run-time.
The following code for Form_Load does that. It assumes a
database file named "MYDATA.MDB". Use whatever is Set Data1.Recordset = rs
appropriate. The one other check made by Form_Load is
that the RecordSet is not empty. If it is, a new record is Note: If you choose this method, you will also have to use
added. rs.Close and the last two lines (Set rs... and Set Data1...)
Private Sub Form_Load() when you use SQL queries in the next database lesson.
Dim DBPath as String
Reference:http://graphicsmagician.com/vbcourse/07
DBPath = App.Path
If Right(DBPath,1) <> "\" Then DBPath = DBPath & "\" datacontrol/data1.htm
Data1.DatabaseName = DBPath & "mydata.mdb"
Data1.Refresh

If Data1.RecordSet.EOF Then
Data1.RecordSet.AddNew
Data1.UpdateRecord
Data1.Recordset.MoveLast
End If
End Sub

More Database Programming Tips

Accessing data directly, without a bound control:
Dim s as String
' assign the value of a ZipCode field to s:
s = Data1.Recordset!ZipCode

Looping through the whole recordset:

' Perform some operation on every record in the
recordset
Data1.Recordset.MoveFirst
Do While Data1.Recordset.EOF = False
' Insert your code here to do whatever to this
record:

Data1.Recordset.MoveNext
Loop

Office 2000 notes (only for those who absolutely

need to know how to do this. Otherwise, ignore.)
To use an Access 2000 database (if you choose not to
"Save As Previous Version" in Access), you should do the
following:
(1) Under Project/References in Visual Basic, click on
Microsoft DAO 3.6, and de-select any previous version of
the DAO (Data Access Object).
(2) In General Declarations, add the following:
Private db As Database, rs As Recordset

(3) Do NOT set the DatabaseName property of the Data

Control.
(4) In Form_Load, add the following:
Set db =
DBEngine(0).OpenDatabase("mydatabase.mdb")

'replace mydatabase with the path and name of your

Access 2000 mdb file

Set rs = db.OpenRecordset("mytable")

' replace mytable with the name of a table in your

database