Extract Individual Contents of the Connection String from your Web.Config

A lot of blogs speak about retrieving ConnectionStrings from your web.config files. However what if we need to extract individual contents/portions like the DataSource or the Initial Catalog from the Connection String. This post explains how to extract them

C#

protected void Page_Load(object sender, EventArgs e)

{

string connStr = WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings

    ["NorthwindConnectionString"].ConnectionString;

SqlConnectionStringBuilder bldr = 

    new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(connStr);

// displays (local)

string dataSrc = bldr.DataSource;

// displays Northwind

string iniCat = bldr.InitialCatalog;

}

VB.NET

    Protected Sub Page_Load(ByVal sender As Object, _

                            ByVal e As EventArgs)

        Dim connStr As String = _

        WebConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings _

        ("NorthwindConnectionString").ConnectionString

        Dim bldr As New SqlConnectionStringBuilder(connStr)

        ' displays (local)

        Dim dataSrc As String = bldr.DataSource

        ' displays Northwind

        Dim iniCat As String = bldr.InitialCatalog

    End Sub

As shown above, we use the SqlConnectionStringBuilder to extract the contents of a connection string. This class provides a simple way to create and manage contents of the ConnectionString.