Question

I’m making an ASP.net with c# webapp using VS 2008, and I added a new sql database item to my project. I added tables to the databse. In the database explorer the test connection works. I guess I have two questions. One:In the application, how does one connect to the database using a connection string? or what connection string should I use? Second: How do I add a username and password to the database?

Right now I’m using this connection string in the web.config file, but when I run the app it times out and says it can’t make a connection. The error is on the conn.open line.

add name="ReportsConnectionString" connectionString="Data Source=(local); Initial     Catalog=REPORTS;Integrated Security=True" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"

I have this code in one of my page’s codebehind.

string sqlquery = "SELECT * FROM reportitems";
using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["ReportsConnectionString"].ConnectionString))
    {
        conn.Open();
        using (SqlCommand comm = new SqlCommand(sqlquery, conn))
        {
            using (SqlDataAdapter adapter = new SqlDataAdapter(comm))
            {
                DataSet ds = new DataSet();
                adapter.Fill(ds, "reportitems");
                DataRowCollection dra = ds.Tables["reportitems"].Rows;

                foreach (DataRow dr in dra)
                {
                    string DRZ = dr[0].ToString();
                     //more stuff here
                 }
            }
         }
     }

Answer 1

Usually SqlServer Express is reachable on your local PC using this syntax for the Data Source parameter yourpcname\SQLEXPRESS. To be sure start Management Studio and look at the Server Name request.

For the security part of your question, I suppose that you don’t want the Integrated Security option (Windows User), but you want a SQLServer user. In this case you could use the User ID and Password parameters for the connection string:

Data Source=MYPC\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=REPORTS;User Id=MYNAME;Password=MYPASS;

However, this works only after you have added this user to the SQLServer.
You could use the interface of Management Studio app or you could execute a script like this

USE [master]
GO
CREATE LOGIN [MYNAME] WITH PASSWORD=N'MYPASS', DEFAULT_DATABASE=[master]
GO
USE [REPORTS]
GO
CREATE USER [MYNAME] FOR LOGIN [MYNAME]
GO