One of the most tedious jobs Visual C++ programmers face when retrieving data with ADO is converting data returned as a VARIANT data type into a C++ data type, and then storing the converted data in a class or structure. In addition to being cumbersome, retrieving C++ data through a VARIANT data type diminishes performance.
ADO provides an interface that supports retrieving data into native C/C++ data types without going through a VARIANT, and also provides preprocessor macros that simplify using the interface. The result is a flexible tool that is easier to use and has great performance.
A common C/C++ client scenario is to bind a record in a Recordset to a C/C++ struct or class containing native C/C++ types. When going through VARIANTs, this involves writing conversion code from VARIANT to C/C++ native types. The Visual C++ Extensions for ADO are targeted at making this scenario much easier for the Visual C++ programmer.
See the following topics to learn more about the Visual C++ Extensions for ADO.