Question

I have Business Objects classes that need to know what connection string have to use.

I call/create those BO from my code passing the connection String to a connString property of the BO, and can be called/created too from framework controls, and this doesn’t allow me set connString property. (I have to call the method with one additional parameter for connectionstring)

I have something like this:

public class MyBOClass{
    public FillMethodX(int ID)
    {
        //Fill the BO with data...
    };
    public FillMethodX(int ID, string connString)
    {
        SetConnString(connString);
        FillMethodX(ID);
    };

    public FillMethodY(int ID)
    {
        //Fill the BO with data...
    };
    public FillMethodY(int ID, string connString)
    {
        SetConnString(connString);
        FillMethodY(ID);
    };
}

Can I avoid to replicate each method with a overload to pass a connString with a best approach? (optional parameter,generics, etc??)

Thanks.

edit: sorry I put “connection string” but really I passing a string that represents a database that my BOs use internally.

Answer 1

There are many ways you can do this, one of which you mentioned already – optional arguments.

Another way would be to expose a generic ConnectionString property that returns the current connection string, and then do away with the 1 parameter overload. Callers would be required to pass a connection string, and can just pass MyBOClass.ConnectionString. This may actually be a little clearer to readers of the code who wonder where the connection info comes from in the first place.