3 Opening a Database Connection for use in an ASP Page

Back to Tutorial

3.1  Open a DSN-less Connection using a FrontPage Connection

After Creating a FrontPage Connection as detailed in Part 2, you can use the connection name that you created to link the database with your ASP page.  

If you cannot remember the name of your connection, you can find it under the Web Settings option in the Tools menu. (See Figure 1)


Figure 1

  1. Include adovbs.inc into the same directory as the page you are adding your connection to by downloading adovbs.inc and using the following code at the top of the web page where you adding the connection code.

    <!--#Include file="adovbs.inc" --> 
  2. To connect to the facultyConnection from Figure 1, the following code should be placed at the top of the web page:
    <%
    Set fp_conn = Server.CreateObject("ADODB.Connection")
    fp_conn.Open Application("facultyConnection_ConnectionString")
    %>
  3. The '<%' and '%>' are signals to the server that the code inside of these brackets is ASP script.
  4. The first line of ASP script creates a new connection
  5. The second line opens the facultyConnection.  To open a different connection just replace facultyConnection with the name of your connection.
  6. You should now be ready to use recordsets to interact with the database.

3.2  Open a DSN-less Connection without using a FrontPage Connection

To use a DSN-less Connection it is not necessary to create a connection using Microsoft FrontPage.  The following code will allow you to connect to an Access database.

  1. Include adovbs.inc into the same directory as the page you are adding your connection to by downloading adovbs.inc and using the following code at the top of the web page where you adding the connection code.

    <!--#Include file="adovbs.inc" --> 
  2. This following code contains the connection to the Access Database.  It can be placed at the top of any web pages needing to connect to the database. You could connect to any type of database depending on how the server is setup and the drivers you call for. This connection is called a DSN-less connection to Access Database. DSN Stands for 'Data Source Name'.

    <%

    set conntemp=server.createobject("adodb.connection")

    DSNtemp="DRIVER={Microsoft Access Driver (*.mdb)}; "

    DSNtemp=dsntemp & "DBQ=" & server.mappath("../../fpdb/OfficeList.mdb")

    conntemp.Open DSNtemp

    %>
  3. The '<%' and '%>' are signals to the server that the code inside of these brackets is ASP script.
  4. The first line of ASP script creates a new connection
  5. The second and third line create a string containing the connection information.  This database is an Access database located at "../../fpdb/OfficeList.mdb".  To open a database with a different name or location simply change the location in the third line.
  6. The last line opens your connection using the DSNtemp string.
  7. You should now be ready to use recordsets to interact with the database.