Test to see if Entity Framework is connected to something

Question

When you create a new EntityCollection object, the connection doesn't attempt to open the database until you try and do something with that collection. I need to determine whether or not an Entity collection has a valid connection or not, and I can't find an efficient method of doing it.

Currently I've got this in my code:

var db = new MyEntityCollection();  try {      var checkworking = from c in db.Customers select c; } catch  {       ConnectToBackUp(); } 

Which is not only horrible code, but very slow since it waits an age to determine whether or not the connection is active before throwing an exception.

I know I can control how long it waits before giving up by using ConnectionTimeout but that's just another ugly hack that makes a bad situation worse.

Surely there's a better way of doing this?

Answer 1

Simplest:

private bool TestConnection() {     var db = new MyEntityCollection();     int oldTimeOut = db.CommandTimeout;      try     {        db.CommandTimeout = 1;        db.Connection.Open();   // check the database connection        return true;     }     catch      {         return false;     }     finally      {        db.CommandTimeout = oldTimeOut;     } } 

Update for EF6:

using System.Data.Common; ...  public bool TestConnection() {     using (var db = new MyEntityCollection()) {         DbConnection conn = db.Database.Connection;         try {             conn.Open();   // check the database connection             return true;         }         catch {             return false;         }     } } 

Answer 2

Are you just wanting to see if the DB connection is valid. If so take a look at the objectcontext.databaseExists().