Question

In using Enterprise Library, there was an issue with having to manually close db connections, as GC, when scanning the heap, looks for items out of scope.

A connection that is part of a pool that is being used but the connection state is broken or fetching, but you have already received your results, will be kept open, and connection handles in the pool will run out.

Thus, adding manual connection checking and forcedly closing the connections is good form.

Now, take SubSonic. With an EntLib base, I am doing the following in a finally block:

        public static bool GetISOCountryCodes(out DataSet dsISOCountryCodes, out Response dbResponse)
    {
        dbResponse = new Response();
        dsISOCountryCodes = new DataSet();
        StoredProcedure sp = null;
        try
        {
            sp = SPs.GetISOCountryCodes(null);
            dsISOCountryCodes = sp.GetDataSet();

            // set the response object properties
            dbResponse = new Response((int)sp.OutputValues[0]);

            return dbResponse.IsValid;
        }
        catch (System.Exception ex)
        {
            return dbResponse.IsValid;               
        }
        finally
        {
                if (sp.Command != null && sp.Command.ToDbCommand().Connection != null &&
                sp.Command.ToDbCommand().Connection.State == ConnectionState.Open)
                sp.Command.ToDbCommand().Connection.Close();
        }
    }

I know it’s been said that you don’t have to manually do this, as SubSonic will do this for you, however, I’d like to know if anyone has run into issues with SubSonic not closing connections (once again, as it uses EntLib at the root), and if there are better ways of accomplishing this.

Obviously, in all my data caller methods, I will reference one, say, “ConnectionCloser()” method.

Thanks.

Answer 1

This post was more of a notification for discussion. However, I’m not sure if the issue has actually been resolved with v5. So essentially the answer is to continue checking in the finally block.