SqlConnection Class

A SqlConnection object represents a unique session to a SQL Server data source. With a client/server database system, it is equivalent to a network connection to the server. SqlConnection is used together with SqlDataAdapter and SqlCommand to increase performance when connecting to a Microsoft SQL Server database. For all third-party SQL server products, and other OLE DB-supported data sources, use OleDbConnection.

When you create an instance of SqlConnection, all properties are set to their initial values. For a list of these values, see the SqlConnection constructor.

See ConnectionString for a list of the keywords in a connection string.

If the SqlConnection goes out of scope, it won't be closed. Therefore, you must explicitly close the connection by calling Close or Dispose. Close and Dispose are functionally equivalent. If the connection pooling value Pooling is set to true or yes, the underlying connection is returned back to the connection pool. On the other hand, if Pooling is set to false or no, the underlying connection to the server is actually closed.

Note
Login and logout events will not be raised on the server when a connection is fetched from or returned to the connection pool, because the connection is not actually closed when it is returned to the connection pool. For more information, see SQL Server Connection Pooling (ADO.NET).

To ensure that connections are always closed, open the connection inside of a using block, as shown in the following code fragment. Doing so ensures that the connection is automatically closed when the code exits the block.

using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString))
    {
        connection.Open();
        // Do work here; connection closed on following line.
    }

Note
To deploy high-performance applications, you must use connection pooling. When you use the .NET Framework Data Provider for SQL Server, you do not have to enable connection pooling because the provider manages this automatically, although you can modify some settings. For more information, see SQL Server Connection Pooling (ADO.NET).

If a SqlException is generated by the method executing a SqlCommand, the SqlConnection remains open when the severity level is 19 or less. When the severity level is 20 or greater, the server ordinarily closes the SqlConnection. However, the user can reopen the connection and continue.

An application that creates an instance of the SqlConnection object can require all direct and indirect callers to have sufficient permission to the code by setting declarative or imperative security demands. SqlConnection makes security demands using the SqlClientPermission object. Users can verify that their code has sufficient permissions by using the SqlClientPermissionAttribute object. Users and administrators can also use the Caspol.exe (Code Access Security Policy Tool) to modify security policy at the machine, user, and enterprise levels. For more information, see Security in the .NET Framework. For an example demonstrating how to use security demands, see Code Access Security and ADO.NET.

Note
If you are using Microsoft .NET Framework version 1.0, the FullTrust named permission set is required to connect to SQL Server by using Open. This requirement does not apply if you are using .NET Framework version 1.1 or later. For more information, see Requesting Permissions and Named Permission Sets.

For more information about handling warning and informational messages from the server, see Connection Events (ADO.NET). SQL Server engine errors and error messages are documented in SQL Server Books Online.

Caution
ADO.NET 2.0 does not support Asynchronous commands over shared memory for SQL Server 2000 or lower. However, you can force TCP instead of shared memory. You can do that by prefixing tcp: to the server name in the connection string or you can use localhost.

The following example creates a SqlCommand and a SqlConnection. The SqlConnection is opened and set as the Connection for the SqlCommand. The example then calls ExecuteNonQuery. To accomplish this, the ExecuteNonQuery is passed a connection string and a query string that is a Transact-SQL INSERT statement. The connection is closed automatically when the code exits the using block.

private static void CreateCommand(string queryString,
    string connectionString)
{
    using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(
               connectionString))
    {
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(queryString, connection);
        command.Connection.Open();
        command.ExecuteNonQuery();
    }
}

.NET Framework

.NET Framework Client Profile

Windows 7, Windows Vista SP1 or later, Windows XP SP3, Windows XP SP2 x64 Edition, Windows Server 2008 (Server Core not supported), Windows Server 2008 R2 (Server Core supported with SP1 or later), Windows Server 2003 SP2

Reference

Other Resources