Question

I would like to know if there are any pitfalls on calling a static method from an ASP.NET web service.

    internal static object SelectScalar(String commandText, DataBaseEnum dataBase)
    {
        SqlConnection sqlc = new SqlConnection(AuthDbConnection.GetDatabaseConnectionString());
        object returnval=null;
        if (sqlc!=null)
        {
            SqlCommand sqlcmd = sqlc.CreateCommand();
            sqlcmd.CommandText = commandText;
            sqlc.Open();
            returnval = sqlcmd.ExecuteScalar();
        }
        return returnval;
    }

So for an example the method above; are there any pitfalls on multiple web methods and multiple clients calling this method at the same time (say, 1000 calls to a web method that calls this function)?

Answer 1

Since you’re creating a new SqlConnection, you want to dispose it or the connection won’t close. See MSDN for usage guidelines.

The fact that its a static method though… that doesn’t seem to be an issue since you’re not updating any shared state (global variables).

EDIT: AFAIK, the ‘pitfalls’ of static methods in webservices are the same as in any other application. The only thing to keep a note of is that a webservice is a server that is expected to run reliably for a long period of time. Thus things that could cause problems over time (memory leaks, db connection exhaustion, etc) are more significant than for other applications that run for a much shorter time period.