ASP.NET connection string metadata syntax

Question

I'm new to ASP.NET-ville, be gentle.

I have been troubleshooting a ASP.NET setup, where the server/database values are changing, therefore web.config needs to be updated.

There are multiple <add name="NameXYZ" connectionString="blah" /> instances (multiple ASP.NET components), but some of these are marked up differently to others.

I've got the following provided:

<add name="CONNECTION-B" connectionString="metadata=res://*/ZZZZ.ssdl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string=&quot;Data Source=XXX;Initial Catalog=YYY;Persist Security Info=True;User ID=AAA;Password=BBBB;MultipleActiveResultSets=True&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />


<add name="CONNECTION-A" connectionString="server=XXX;database=YYY;user id=XXX;password=BBB" />

I've used substituted values in the above, making the assumption that for both format types:

• XXX is the server (MSSQL host)
• YYY is the database name
• AAA is the database user, and
• BBB is the user password.

(ZZZZ is a pipe-delimited list of something)

Questions are as follows:

A) Is my assumption of synonymous connection string terms accurate? (Data Source <=> server, database <=> initial catalog)

B) Are there any syntax errors in the markup? Some MSDN documents I've looked up use double, single, and " marks interchangeably.

Answer 1

There are two different types of connection strings here. The best bet (IMO) is to have a read up in the docs -

The first is an ADO.Net connection string: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms254500.aspx

The second is an Entity Framework connection string: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc716756.aspx

It's all explained in those two links, certainly clearer than I can explain it!