Question

I have the below mentioned code in a seperate class file for establishing connection and carry out DB transactions. I have an issue where multiple connections being opened which sometime exceed the connection pool. When I stepped through the code I found that there are codes which call ConnectDB() in a loop without calling DisconnectDB(). But I expected that the condition OraConn.State = ConnectionState.Closed should handle the situation. Somehow the condition is always satisfied hence openning another set of connection. Can you suggest where am I going wrong and also what best practice can be adopted here?

Public Class Connection
Dim Str_conn As String = "Data Source=...; User=...; password=...; Min Pool Size=10; Max Pool Size=500;"
Public OraConn As OracleConnection
Dim cmd As OracleCommand
Dim dr As OracleDataReader
Dim data_adapt As OracleDataAdapter
Dim dt As DataTable
Dim ds As DataSet

Public Sub ConnectDB()
    OraConn = New OracleConnection(Str_conn)
    If OraConn.State = ConnectionState.Closed Then
        OraConn.Open()
    End If
End Sub

Public Sub DisconnectDB()
    If OraConn.State = ConnectionState.Open Then
        OraConn.Close()
    End If
End Sub

Public Function get_dataset(ByVal query As String, ByRef ds As DataSet) As DataSet
    data_adapt = New OracleDataAdapter(query, OraConn)
    data_adapt.Fill(ds)
    Return ds
End Function

Public Function get_datareader(ByVal query As String) As OracleDataReader
    cmd = New OracleCommand(query, OraConn)
    dr = cmd.ExecuteReader()
    Return dr
End Function

Public Sub UpdateDB(ByVal query As String)
    cmd = New OracleCommand(query, OraConn)
    cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
    cmd.Dispose()
End Sub

The class is refered in other classes or directly in the aspx.vb pages like this.

Public Function InsertData(ByVal var1 As String, ByVal var2 As String) As Integer
    conn.ConnectDB()
    Dim qryInsert As String

    qryInsert = " INSERT INTO TABLE VALUES ('" & var1 & "', " 
    qryInsert = qryInsert & var2 & "')"        

    Try
       conn.UpdateDB(qryInsert) 
    Catch ex As OracleException
        If ex.Code = 1 Then
            updData(var1, var2)
       ElseIf ex.Code = 2091 Then
           msgprompt("Duplicate Unique Key!", "Warning")
       End If
    Finally
        conn.DisconnectDB()
    End Try
    Return count
End Function

The connection is again opened in function updData(). While I understand that it has to be closed correctly but keeping tab on every developer is not possible. Hence I want to control it directly from the connection class by using the same connection but the condition If OraConn.State = ConnectionState.Closed is not helping.

UPDATE

I have put the code in UpdateDB under a Using block and removed call to ConnectDB and DisconnectDB from function like InsertData(…). It seems that the issue has been resolved. But I would like to know in case of exception will the connection remain open? and also OraConn is a public variable defined outside Using block so will it be disposed of by the GC?

Public Sub UpdateDB(ByVal query As String)
    Using OraConn = New OracleConnection(Str_conn)
        cmd = New OracleCommand(query, OraConn)
        Try
            OraConn.Open()
            cmd.ExecuteNonQuery()
        Catch ex As Exception
            Throw
        Finally
            cmd.Dispose()
        End Try
    End Using
End Sub

Answer 1

You must close all the connections as soon as you are done with it, no matter what.

Suggestion:

The best practice for closing the connection is to do it in finally block. So that even if there is any error, catch it (log it if required) in catch block, and then connection will get close in finally block.

UPDATE

You can put one private static counter in your Connection class. When ever ConnectDB() is called you increment this counter and decrement it in every DisconnectDB(). Now in ConnectDB() you check the value of counter, if it exceeds a minimum threshold you throw error, by doing this way; you can come to know idle connection present in your code and refactor it. On production keep this threshold value high or ignore it in code.