Can Entity Framework connection strings reuse an existing connection string?

Question

In my configuration files I have a connection string used by a legacy part of the app (using Datasets) and another string for Entity Framework:

<connectionStrings>
    <add name="Database" connectionString="Server=..." />
    <add name="Entities" connectionString="metadata=.....connection string='Server=..." />
</connectionStrings>

This means the server name, database name etc. are specified twice. I'd like to tell the EF connection string to reuse the first string - is this possible?

Answer 1

I know this post is a bit old, but I figure this will help someone out there:

You can use the EntityConnectionStringBuilder to build your EF connection from your existing connection string. This is a sample I'm using in my own code:

public static string GetEntityFrameworkConnectionString(string clientConnectionString)
{
    EntityConnectionStringBuilder entityBuilder = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder();
    entityBuilder.Provider = "System.Data.SqlClient";
    entityBuilder.ProviderConnectionString = clientConnectionString;
    entityBuilder.Metadata = "res://*/Entities.UBTEntities.csdl|res://*/Entities.UBTEntities.ssdl|res://*/Entities.UBTEntities.msl";
    return entityBuilder.ToString();
}

So when you instantiate your EF provider, just pass in the string returned from the method above into the constructor.

Hope this helps.

Answer 2

I think a better approach would be to refactor the application to use just one connection string rather than trying to reference one from the other in your configuration file.