What is difference in adodb and oledb?

Question

What is the difference between adodb and oledb?

What is the relation between these two?

Where does ado.net stands in context of adodb and oledb?

Answer 1

Adodb (ActiveX Data Objects DB) works with MS-based databases such as Sql Server. Oledb (Object Linking and Embedding DB) is a standard format supported by a large number of dbs, so you can connect to oracle, db2 etc. using Oledb. You can also use oledb to connect to Sql Server (but not MS Access, I think) but the performance is lower as compared to a adodb connection which is optimized to work with Sql Server and MS Access.

Both of them are APIs to connect with databases. Adodb is MS-based and Oledb is a shared-API.

ADO.Net is a .Net based db connection "architecture". In ADO.Net there's a library for Oledb - System.Data.OledbClient. Adodb has been replaced/upgraded and ADO.Net now uses the System.Data.SqlClient library for MS-based databases/data providers.