How do I give an SqlConnection a string as the AttachDbFilename?

I'd like to have a string be used as the AttachDbFilename in my SqlConnection.

AttachDbFilename

SqlConnection

However when I feed it a string it doesn't work and just gives me a null or invalid connection/failure. How do I properly provide AttachDbFilename as a string value in place of the normal set path?

AttachDbFilename

DialogResult result = openFileDialog1.ShowDialog();

if (result == DialogResult.OK)
{
string databasePath = openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory + openFileDialog1.FileName;

SqlConnection dataBaseConnection = new SqlConnection(@"Data Source=.SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename=databasePath;Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30;User Instance=True");
}


1 Answer
1

You have databasePath inside the string literal so right now you are trying to attach with a Db Filename of "databasePath", which I'm assuming doesn't exist. One way you could do this is to use string.Format, so you would do something like this

databasePath

string.Format

string databasePath = openFileDialog1.InitialDirectory + openFileDialog1.FileName;
SqlConnection dataBaseConnection = new SqlConnection(string.Format(@"Data Source=.SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename={0};Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30;User Instance=True", databasePath);


Or, for something even more organized, you could use the SQLConnectionStringBuilder class to build a connection string for you, and then just set the AttachDbFilename property of the builder to the string that you want.

I tried that code and the dataBaseConnection is stale and the debugger says "The value of this item is stale due to a problem that occured while evaluating it".
– serialconnectorzrcool
Jun 29 at 17:00

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