Question

The reason I ask, is that origionally all references and examples pointed towards Method 2.

But Method 1 seems to do so much more in so much less code. Surely its

1. neater,
2. Better
3. Easier to read / follow
4. and has features like converting DBNulls to null. Rather than having
   to do it myself.
5. Handles opening and closing of the connection/ data readers.

I cant think of any reasons for method 2 over using method 1.

(Method 2 could probably have a using clause, but due to so much code, it was put in a seperate function to be called from else wher, and hence closing it closed the datareader making data inacccessable.)

Anyway, I am seriously thinking about going back and changing over my entire webservice to use method 1 as it seems so much better and maintainable. Can anyone suggest otherwise?

Method 1:

using (var db = Database.OpenConnectionString(Library.Properties.Settings.Default.dbConnString, "System.Data.SqlClient"))
        {
            Int32 AccNo = db.QuerySingle("SELECT AccNo FROM Tasks WHERE TaskID = " + TaskID);
        }

Method 2:

        sqlComm = new SqlCommand();
        sqlCon = new SqlConnection();
        sqlComm.Connection = sqlCon;

        sqlCon.ConnectionString = global::Library.Properties.Settings.Default.dbConnString;
        sqlComm.CommandText = "SELECT AccNo FROM Tasks WHERE TaskID = " + TaskID;
        sqlCon.Open();
        SqlDataReader data = sqlComm.ExecuteReader();
        while (data.Read())
        {
            Int32 AccNo = (Int32)data["AccNo"];
        }
        sqlCon.Close();
        sqlComm.Dispose();
        if (data != null)
           data.Close();

Answer 1

Try using the entity framework

using (var context = new YourDatabaseEntities())
{
    var elements = (from c in context.YourTable where c.TaskId == taskId select c);
}