>Hello,
>
>I'm in process of physically seperating my middle tier objects into a DLL. Question - what are best practices for moving data between mid and front end? ADO? XML? Can anyone share experiences in this area? BTW - VFP on front and mid for now ...
>
>TIA!

My data services class serves up either ADO recordsets, or ADO recordsets persisted as XML, depending on a property (generally set at design time). It communicates with the backend using the ADO Command object, and generally stored procedures.

The classes are usually set to return XML, because I have a quick routine that will convert ADO XML to a VFP cursor. This allows me to build a middle tier that can serve up data to any front end that understands ADO, but still be able to use cursors in the VFP front end.

Keep in mind that ADO RS objects (and DCOM itself) cannot cross through most firewalls. XML is the only solution for apps that can run over the internet on any machine. It takes a bit more work to set up (you have to have a web server to take responses), but makes for an infinitely portable application.