Question

I have a solution with 4/5 projects.

I currently have the connection string for my domain project hardcoded in a c# file.

I’d like to put this in a web.config or something. From what I’ve been reading here and elsewhere I should store these connection strings in the web config of the calling application?

If so how do I access it?

When I do something like this in my class library:

ConnectionStringSettingsCollection connectionStrings =
    connectionStringsSection.ConnectionStrings;

The type or namespace could not be found, am I missing a reference or something?

Answer 1

There is an existing schema in the config schema for connection strings.

This goes under the <configuration> element:

<connectionStrings>
  <add name="example" connectionString="..."/>
</connectionStrings>

In your code, you should use ConfigurationManager to access them. In order to have the reference to it you need to add a using System.Configuration; namespace to your file and the System.Configuration.dll assembly reference to your project (if not already there).

string conn = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["example"];