Connecting to an Oracle Database from Visual Basic using ODBC and ActiveX

By Matt Kaliszewski
(NOTE: All procedures were done using the Windows 2000 Professional Operating
system, Oracle8i, and Visual Basic 6.0 SP5)
Before you can start pulling data from an Oracle database, you first need to set up a
way for Visual Basic to communicate with Oracle. To do this, you need to set up an
Oracle ODBC driver.
First, make sure you have the name of your database.
If you dont have it, you can get it or create a new one by using the Oracle
Database Configuration Assistant in your Oracle iSuites -> Database
Administration folder.
Now, we must set up the ODBC Driver. To do this, go to Control Panel -> Administrative
Tools and open Data Sources (ODBC). Once open, the first tab titled User DSN
should contain any already set up ODBC drivers. Click the Add button on the right
hand side of the form. When the Create New Data Source window pops up, choose
Oracle ODBC Driver from the list and click finish. A new window entitled Oracle 8
ODBC Driver Setup should appear. In the Data Source Name field, enter the name
you want to use as your ODBC Driver. In my case it was CarParts. The next field is to
enter a description of the connection and it is optional. In the Service Name field, enter
the name of your database. Here I entered CarParts because that was the name of my
database. In UserID field, enter the user name that you use to access your data. In my
case I entered matt. Leave all of the rest of the options untouched. Click OK to finish.
Close the ODBC Data Source Administrator.
To test the connection, I use the Oracle ODBC Test located in the Network
Administration folder in the Oracle iSuites folder in my start menu. When you open
the program, click the Connect button to get started. A window titled Select Data
Source will open up. Click the Machine Data Source tab on that window. Select the
ODBC Driver you just created and click OK. It may take a minute, but a window will
pop up titled Oracle8 ODBC Driver Connect. Leave the Service Name the same and
enter your User Name and Password and click OK. If it doesnt work, it will give you
information why and you can even ask for further detail. If it does work, it will take you
back to the main Oracle ODBC Test window and the Disconnect button will now be
enabled. To see all of the tables you have created, press the User Tables button. In the
window, you can also enter an SQL statement and click Execute and it will show you
the results.
Now onto the Visual Basic part.

We are now going to connect to Oracle using the ODBC Driver. To make sure you have
all the proper values, make sure that you create a New Data Project in Visual Basic.
You will need the following code in visual basic to make a connection. I made my
connection variable global so that all forms in the database could use the same initial
connection.
The following code is in a separate module in the application:
' Connection variable for the database
Public gConnection As ADODB.Connection

The following code is to open a connection. It is from my logon form that is loaded when
the application starts:
' Variable to hold connection information
Dim strConn As String
' Create a new connection
Set gConnection = New ADODB.Connection
With gConnection
' Set the connection properties
.ConnectionTimeout = 3 ' Set the connection timeout(s)
.CursorLocation = adUseClient ' Use Client Based cursors
End With
' Create the first half of the connection string
strConn = "Data Source=CarParts;" ' Enter the name of your ODBC Driver
' This next code takes the User ID and Password that the user entered
' on my form and adds the values to the strConn string
strConn = strConn & "User Id=" & txtUID.Text & ";"
strConn = strConn & "Password=" & txtPWD.Text & ";"
' You can add a hard-coded username and password like this (just dont
' do both)
strConn = strConn & "User Id=scott;Password=tiger;"
' Open the connection
gConnection.Open strConn
' Be sure to use gConnection.Close when exiting your application

In order to handle the data returned from executing an SQL statement, you need to
create a recordset to handle it for you. Once you create and open a record set, you can
get all of your data by looping through (if necessary) and setting the values of a textbox
using the recordset like this:
' To get a value from the current record, use
' the syntax: recordset(FIELD_NAME)
txtGarageName.Text = rsGarages(GARAGE_NAME)
txtGarageAddress.Text = rsGarages(ADDRESS)
'etcetc

The following code illustrates how to create a new recordset, how to create an SQL
statement, how to open the recordset and how to get the data from the recordset. The
code populates a combo box with all of the garages in my database by creating a
recordset using an SQL statement.
*cboGarages is a combo box that is on the form.
'Create the recordset variable
Dim rsGarages As ADODB.Recordset
'Create a string to hold the SQL statement
Dim strSQL As String
'Enable the combo box
cboGarages.Enabled = True
'Clear the combo box
cboGarages.Clear
' Add the first item
cboGarages.AddItem "Select a Garage.."
' Create a new recordset
Set rsGarage = New ADODB.Recordset
' Create the SQL statement
strSQL = "SELECT DISTINCT garages.garage_name " & _
"FROM garages, garage_purchases " & _
"WHERE garage_purchases.garage_id = garages.garage_id " & _
"ORDER BY garages.garage_name"
' Open the recordset using the SQL,the open connection,
' a Keyset-driven cursor and Optimistic Concurrency
rsGarage.Open strSQL, gConnection, adOpenKeyset, adLockOptimistic
' Loop through the recordset and populate the combo box
With rsGarage
While Not .EOF
' To get a value from the current record, use
' the syntax: recordset(FIELD_NAME)
cboGarages.AddItem rsGarage("GARAGE_NAME")
.MoveNext
Wend
End With
' Select the first item in the combo box as the default
cboGarages.ListIndex = 0
' Close the recordset
Set rsGarage = Nothing

You can use the same format to insert and update data as well. All you need to do is to
change the strSQL variable to whatever you need to do, INSERT INTO, UPDATE, etc.
Open the recordset the same way.