Question

I’m not using LINQ-to-SQL or Entity Framework bits in a web app, and have currently been using something like this (this is for a class project):

using System.Data;
using System.Data.SqlClient;

namespace StackOverflowClone.Models
{
    public class Database
    {
        public static SqlConnection ActiveConnection { get; private set; }

        static Database()
        {
            ActiveConnection = new SqlConnection(
                "Data Source=********.database.windows.net;" +
                "Initial Catalog=EECS341;Uid=*****;Pwd=*******;" + 
                "MultipleActiveResultSets=True;");
            ActiveConnection.Open();
        }
    }
}

However this seems to cause threading issues because the static initializer runs once per server process, rather than once per request.

Does the framework provide a built in method of handling this or should I just have a function that coughs up database connections new’d up each time?

Answer 1

or should I just have a function that coughs up database connections new’d up each time?

Yes, do this. Let ADO.NET connection pooling handle the details for you. Your goal should be to keep the connection open for as short a period of time as possible.

Connection pooling reduces the number of times that new connections
must be opened. The pooler maintains ownership of the physical
connection. It manages connections by keeping alive a set of active
connections for each given connection configuration. Whenever a user
calls Open on a connection, the pooler looks for an available
connection in the pool. If a pooled connection is available, it
returns it to the caller instead of opening a new connection. When the
application calls Close on the connection, the pooler returns it to
the pooled set of active connections instead of closing it. Once the
connection is returned to the pool, it is ready to be reused on the
next Open call.

So, create a static GetConnection() method that returns a new open connection. Use this within a using statement so it can be closed and returned to the connection pool as soon as possible.

using(var cn = Database.GetConnection())
{
    //query your data here, Dapper example below
    cn.Execute("update MyTable set MyField = @newValue", new {newValue});
}