How do you construct a DbConnection based on a provider name?
Sample provider names
- System.Data.SqlClient
- System.Data.OleDb
- System.Data.Odbc
- FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient
i have connection strings stored in my IIS server's web.config file:
<connectionStrings>
<add name="development"
connectionString="Provider = IBMDA400; Data Source = MY_SYSTEM_NAME; User Id = myUsername; Password = myPassword;"
providerName="System.Data.OleDb" />
<add name="live"
connectionString="usd=sa;pwd=password;server=deathstar;"
providerName="System.Data.Odbc" />
<add name="testing"
connectionString="usd=sa;pwd=password;server=deathstar;"
providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
<add name="offline"
connectionString="Server=localhost;User=SYSDBA;Password=masterkey;Charser=NONE;Database=c:\data\mydb.fdb"
providerName="FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient"/>
You can see they all use different providers. When it comes time for me to create a connection, i have to know what kind of DbConnection to create, e.g.:
- SqlConnection
- OleDbConnection
- OdbcConnection
- FbConnection
The connectionStrings entries contains a providerName, but these aren't the names of DbConnection descendant classes, but appear to be a namespace
How do i turn construct a DbConnection based on a string providerName?
public DbConnection GetConnection(String connectionName)
{
//Get the connectionString infomation
ConnectionStringSettings cs =
ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[connectionName];
if (cs == null)
throw new ConfigurationException("Invalid connection name \""+connectionName+"\");
//Create a connection based on the provider
DbConnection conn = new DbConnection();
}