Question

I am setting up a .net project that is called to generate other webpages. Basically a true CODE BEHIND page. How do I go about making a connection on a Class Library File, when there is no webconfig file present/available?

Answer 1

In this case, I would create a ‘Base Page’ that derives from System.Web.UI.Page. On this page, you would create a property called ‘ConnectionString’. You will have all of your web pages you create inherit from this page.

Example:

public partial class BasePage : System.Web.UI.Page
{
    protected string ConnectionString
    {
        get
        {
            return System.Configuration.ConfigurationSettings.AppSettings["MyConnectionString"];
        }
    }

}

And in your web.config

<appSettings>
        <!-- Connection String -->
        <add key="MyConnectionString" value="Data Source=myServerAddress;Initial Catalog=myDataBase;User Id=myUsername;Password=myPassword;"/>
</appSettings>

Now you can have a web.config file with a connection string that is easily readable. And you can store this ‘Base Page’ in your class library, no problem. As long as your web pages inheriting from it are using the web.config file with the connection string.

After that, it’s a simple matter of connecting using that string. You can do this in a variety of ways, either in your web pages, or in separate classes (I recommend separate classes). In this case, if you had a separate class, you would need to pass in the ConnectionString property to your connecting functions:

public void ExecuteQuery(string connectionString, string sql)
        {
            using (System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection theConnection = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlConnection(connectionString))
            using (System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand theCommand = new System.Data.SqlClient.SqlCommand(sql, theConnection))
            {
                theConnection.Open();
                theCommand.CommandType = CommandType.Text;
                theCommand.ExecuteNonQuery();
            }
        }

or you can create a function that does not take a connection string parameter, and just reads from the web.config file. It sounds like you may want to put your connecting and data access code in a class library for good separation of data and content. Hope this helps!