Opening Connections

Once you have a connection, there are a few extension methods that let you easily open them.

But don't use these. Insight will do Auto-Open for you!

Notes:

1. You probably will use the Connection methods much more than the Open methods, since Insight supports auto-open/close and does all of the hard work for you.
2. If you are doing asynchronous programming, it's better to hold on to a ConnectionStringSettings or SqlConnectionStringBuilder, rather than an actual connection, so you don't accidentally send more than one query through one connection at a time.

IDBConnection.OpenConnection

Opens the connection and returns it so you can chain your methods. This is handy in a using statement when you want to create a connection and open it.

using (var c = new SqlConnection(connectionString).OpenConnection())
{
	// do stuff...
	c.QuerySql("SELECT * FROM Beer", Parameters.Empty);
}

Or start using the connection immediately...

SqlConnection c = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
c.OpenConnection().ExecuteSql("DELETE FROM Beer", Parameters.Empty); // nooooooo....

ConnectionStringSettings.Open

Converts a ConnectionStringSettings object to a SqlConnection and opens it.

ConnectionStringSettings database = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyDatabase"];

// get an open connection from the ConnectionStringSettings
using (var c = database.Open())
{
	c.QuerySql("SELECT * FROM Beer", Parameters.Empty);
}

DbConnectionStringBuilder.Open / OpenAsync

Converts a DbConnectionStringBuilder to a DbConnection and opens it. The type of connection is detected from the type of the builder.

SqlConnectionStringBuilder database = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(connectionString);
// make other changes here

// manage the lifetime ourselves
using (var c = database.Open())
{
	c.QuerySql("SELECT * FROM Beer", Parameters.Empty);
}

DbConnectionStringBuilder.OpenWithTransaction / OpenWithTransactionAsync

Converts a DbConnectionStringBuilder to a DbConnection, opens it and begins a new transaction. The transaction should be committed before disposal. Note that in this case, Insight will automatically propagate the transaction to all calls made to the connection.

SqlConnectionStringBuilder database = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(connectionString);
// make other changes here

// manage the lifetime ourselves
using (var c = database.OpenWithTransaction())
{
	c.QuerySql("SELECT * FROM Beer", Parameters.Empty);

	// other db calls

	// don't forget to commit it
	c.Commit();
}

Getting A Connection - BACK || NEXT- Auto-Open