ADO.NET 3.5 Cookbook, 2nd Edition

1.4. Connecting to a Named Instance of SQL Server

Problem

You want to connect to a named instance of a SQL Server or SQL Server Express.

Solution

You need to understand what a SQL Server or SQL Server Express named instance is and how to connect to one.

The solution creates and opens a connection to a named instance of a SQL Server Express. Information about the SQL Server is displayed from the properties of the SqlConnection object.

The C# code in Program.cs in the project ConnectSqlServerNamedInstance is shown in Example 1-5.

Example 1-5. File: Program.cs for ConnectSqlServerNamedInstance solution

using System;
using System.Data.SqlClient;

namespace ConnectSqlServerNamedInstance
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            string sqlConnectString = @"Data Source=(local)\SQLExpress;" +
                "Integrated security=SSPI;Initial Catalog=master;";

            using (SqlConnection connection = new SqlConnection(sqlConnectString))
            {
                connection.Open(  );

                // Return some information about the server.
                Console.WriteLine("ConnectionString = {0}\n", sqlConnectString);
                Console.WriteLine("State = {0}", connection.State);
                Console.WriteLine("DataSource = {0}", connection.DataSource);
                Console.WriteLine("ServerVersion = {0}", connection.ServerVersion);
            }

            Console.WriteLine("\nPress any key to continue.");
            Console.ReadKey(  );
        }
    }
}

The output is shown in Figure 1-4.

Figure 1-4. Output for ConnectSqlServerNamedInstance solution ...