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Advanced Delphi Developer's Guide to ADO
by Alex Fedorox and Natalia Elmanova

Publisher: Wordware Publishing inc.  Buy it Now!
ISBN: 1556227582
Format: Paperback, 650pp

Advanced Delphi Developer's Guide to ADO targets the growing market of Delphi developers who are interested in database programming with Microsofts Universal Data Access architecture using Microsoft ActiveX objects. The book is written for novice to intermediate Delphi developers who want to sharpen their database programming knowledge.

Let's see what we can find in the book from the point of Delphi ADO developer. This 650 pages book is divided into more that 20 chapters. Beginning 4 chapters discuss Data Access Basics, Microsoft Data Access Components (MDAC), OLE DB Providers, ADO and its role in the Delphi Database Architecture. On this first 100 pages you learn about database design, relation model, normalization and about various database objects like indexes, views, transactions. Chapter 3 and 4 will help you understand the role that OLE DB providers play in Universal Data Access and the basics of Delphi data access architecture - topics like dataset, filed, database events are explained.
Since this book is about ADO in Delphi the next several chapters are about components that make up ADOExpress - Delphi's (in v5, dbGO in D6) implementation of ADO objects. Components like TADOCOnnection, TADOCommand, TADODataSet and it's descendants are covered in a lot of detail - every property, event and method is explained brifeeely. On almost every page you'll find a small working example of the current subject. There is even an introductory chapter to SQL.
Chapter 10 provides details on several database objects: stored procedures, views, and triggers.
Building Delphi ADO applications is the title of chapter 11. You'll see a real ADO application with data aware components, calculated fields, data validation and error trapping.

The second part of the book explores more advanced topics, such as working with business graphics, creating database reports, and analysis systems using ADO and Delphi components. Topics include OLAP and ADO, ADOX in Delphi, JRO Objects, and building OLAP and multi-tier applications with ADO.

The companion CD ROM contains all the source code from the book and a number of appendixes.

The book is very well organized and easy to read. It will give you a solid foundation for using both native ADO objects and ADOExpress/dbGo. If you plan to work with ADO and Delphi, this book is a must have!