Overwrite connection string value

Question

I'm trying to overwrite some values in a few config files on a MVC solution. I'm doing something like this:

 config.AppSettings.Settings["Key"].Value =newValue;
 config.Save(ConfigurationSaveMode.Modified);

My question is, how to do something similar for ConnectionString file?. I'm trying with this code.

 System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionStringBuilder builder = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnectionStringBuilder();
    builder["InitialCatalog"] = newValue;

SqlConncetionStringBuilder has a ConnectionString property that could be modified. Are you after this one? Or you want to update the ConnectionString in the config file? — Martin
– Martin, Commented Jan 18, 2016 at 22:58
what I want is to select the name of a database, updated values on connectionString file and then recompile the solution with the new values ,I do not know if is the best way to select multiple databases for a project , it was only what occurred to me to do — UserEsp
– UserEsp, Commented Jan 18, 2016 at 23:13
yes I called ConnectionString to my configuration file , sorry for not be so specific. — UserEsp
– UserEsp, Commented Jan 18, 2016 at 23:22
Can you give me some more details about what you are doing? Why cannot you add your connectionstrings in the configuration file, say app.config? — Martin
– Martin, Commented Jan 18, 2016 at 23:39
Yeah,the connectionString is in .config file the problem is that I have one solution that should to be tested with different databases. Actually for do that we change the values on connectionString manually so... I want to find a way for do that on the system and the way that I trying to do is select a value in dropdown , save the value and update the database name on config files that I need , I´m not really sure if is the best way — UserEsp
– UserEsp, Commented Jan 18, 2016 at 23:54

Martin · Accepted Answer · 2016-01-19 00:24:58Z

1

There could be several ways you could achieve this. One easy way would be to create a code that could dynamically determine the connectionstring based on user selection from dropdown and using a predefined sets of ConnectionString you have in your config file. Lets say you have defined following connectionstrings,

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>
    <startup> 
        <supportedRuntime version="v4.0" sku=".NETFramework,Version=v4.5" />
    </startup>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="Development" connectionString="data source=MyDataSource;Initial Catalog=DevDatabase;user id=sa;Pwd=devpassword;"/>
    <add name="Test" connectionString="data source=MyDataSource;Initial Catalog=TestDatabase;user id=sa;Pwd=testpassword;"/>
  </connectionStrings>
</configuration>

Now you can have following code to loop through the connectionstring and determine which one should be used based on the dropdown selection

string selectedEnvironemntName = "Development"; //set from dropdown selection
var predefinedConnections = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings;
SqlConnectionStringBuilder connStringBuilder = null;

foreach( ConnectionStringSettings connString in predefinedConnections)
{
    if (connString.Name == selectedEnvironemntName )
    {
        connStringBuilder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(connString.ConnectionString);
    }
}

//the below two lines can be anywhere in your solution as long as you can pass the connStringBuilder to SqlConnection definition
SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection();
connection.ConnectionString = connStringBuilder.ConnectionString;

Ofcourse, one dependency is there. You have to ensure that the dropdown values are loaded based on the ConnectionString name from the config file. Having this dependency ensures that adding a new ConnectionString in your config file will automatically result in having a new entry in your dropdown in UI

answered Jan 19, 2016 at 0:24

Martin

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1 Comment

UserEsp Over a year ago

The thing is that I have different connectionString names for different providers, and I don´t would like to add to much connectionsString because I´m not sure if I can affect the solution for change that values names. Is a solution with different projects that use that files thats what I want to change just name of the database ,but probably is the best thing to add more connections for each environment, thanks for your help.

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