VB & VBA in a Nutshell: The Language

Data Binding Objects (VB6)

Library to Reference

Microsoft Data Binding Collection (../SYSTEM32/MSBIND.DLL)

Description

Apparently, when Microsoft was planning the new release of Visual Basic, they researched how professional developers were using the language. One result which seems to have taken the VB development team by surprise was that very few professional developers use the Data control and data bound controls. The reason for this is quite easy to understand: rightly or wrongly, professional VB developers see the Data control and data bound controls as inflexible and an encroachment on their control over the database. Furthermore, as more and more VB applications follow the n-tier paradigm, in which database access is performed on a remote server, with only properties passed to (or requested by) the client, the usefulness of a Data control was diminishing rapidly.

With this in mind, Microsoft introduced a new object model to give developers control over data mapping without sacrificing the rapid development time offered by more or less central data binding. The binding objects sit between standard form controls and your recordset (which can be wrapped within a class in an ActiveX server), automatically updating the form control as the user navigates through the recordset. Therefore, any form control can now be bound to a database field.

The Binding object model, which is shown in Figure 7.2, consists of a top-level collection to which you add Binding objects, these being ...