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smickellFlag for United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

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Get connection string from Settings.settings file

I have 3 connection strings stored in my Settings.settings file and I would like to refer to one of them from code rather than re-typing the string.

The code is:
SqlCommand sqlcmd = new SqlCommand(mySqlString, System.Configuration.[something?])

The name of the connection string I want is dbJobRegisterConnectionString.
Also, however it is done, can I access it in a tightly typed fashion, rather than having to type something.something["dbJobRegisterConnectionString"] if you know what I mean?
Thanks in advance.
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mrichmon
Well, if you put it in a .config file then you can have in your web.config this:

<appSettings configSource="Settings.config" />

Then have the Settings.config look like:
<?xml version="1.0"?>
<appSettings>
 <add key="dbJobRegisterConnectionString" value="your connection string here" />
</appSettings>

Then to access you simply do:

WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["dbJobRegisterConnectionString"]

which returns a string by default so in your case it is already typed.

If it were a date then you would do:

Convert.ToDateTime(WebConfigurationManager.AppSettings["myDate"])
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smickell
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ASKER

The appropriate section in my app.config is:
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>
<configuration>

<connectionStrings>
        <add name="JobRegister.Properties.Settings.dbjobregisterConnectionString"
            connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;AttachDbFilename=|DataDirectory|\dbjobregister.mdf;Integrated Security=True;Connect Timeout=30;User Instance=False"
            providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
        ...(other connection strings)....
    </connectionStrings>

    <applicationSettings>
    ....other settings...
    </applicationSettings>

</configuration>

This is a windows application so I don't have WebConfigurationManager and I can't find the equivalent class.
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Carl Tawn
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1.1 or 2.0 ?
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smickell
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ASKER

2.0 sorry I forgot to state this.
ASKER CERTIFIED SOLUTION
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Carl Tawn
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smickell
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ASKER

A faultless solution there carl_tawn, thanks :)
I only had one problem and that was because I built the connection string from a VS wizard - it set the name of the connection string to be "JobRegister.Properties.Settings.dbjobregisterConnectionString" so I had to type that whole string in to make it work. I just snipped the "JobRegister.Properties.Settings" from the app.config and it still works the same. Why that is needed I do not know.

For others wishing to use this solution, the code can be adapted from:
SqlConnection sqlconn = new SqlConnection(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["dbjobregisterConnectionString"].ConnectionString);
sqlconn.Open();
SqlCommand sqlcmd = new SqlCommand(sqlstr, sqlconn);

Thanks again.