Jand writes about team development and Microsoft.NET

Share ConnectionStrings

A customer of mine have a Visual Studio C# solution with more than one project which uses the same ConnectionString. So how can you define your ConnectionString(s) once and share them between projects?
This is how my sample solution looks like. The “Console” and “ServerConsole” projects should use the same ConnectionStrings.

I created a XML file called “connections.config” in the solution root folder and added it to the solution via the “Add Existing Item” dialog. This file contains all my ConnectionStrings I need.

Content of connections.config:

   1:  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>

   2:  <connectionStrings>

   3:    <add name="DefaultDatabase"

   4:     providerName="System.Data.SqlClient"

   5:     connectionString="Data Source=.\SQLEXPRESS;
             Initial Catalog=ShareConnection;
             Integrated Security=True" />

   6:  </connectionStrings>

After that, I add the file to all projects, which are needing the same connections. You need to add the file as “Add As Link” to ensure using the file in the shared location.

Now you see the file in your project with a little arrow on the left bottom (linked file).

To ensure the file is copied to the build output directory, you need to modify the “Copy to Output Directory” setting of the linked file to “Copy Always”.

Now write the following “connectionStrings” section in the “App.config” of your projects:

   1:  <?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?>

   2:  <configuration>

   3:    <appSettings>

   4:      <add key="SpecificProjSetting" value="SomeValue" />

   5:    </appSettings>

   6:    <connectionStrings configSource="connections.config" />

   7:  </configuration>

And that’s all. If you now write your code, you always get the shared ConnectionString e.g.:

   1:  public string GetDbConnection()

   2:  {

   3:      return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["DefaultDatabase"].ConnectionString;

   4:  }

Individual ConnectionStrings for each developer

My second requirements, enabling each developer to have his own ConnectionStrings (they have different Instance-Names), needs only a small addition.

In addition to the “connections.config” file which is under Source Control, each developer can create his own file at the same place with the convention “connections.config.{COMPUTERNAME}” which will not be checked in. In my example my computer’s name is “NIM-50″, so the file is named as “connections.config.NIM-50″.

Edit now each project’s (Pre-Build/Post/Build) property in the “Build Events” tab with the following command lines.

Pre-build event command line:
if exist $(TargetDir)connections.config del $(TargetDir)connections.config

Post-build event command line:
if exist $(SolutionDir)connections.config.$(COMPUTERNAME) copy $(SolutionDir)connections.config.$(COMPUTERNAME) $(TargetDir)connections.config

The “Pre-Build” checks if a “connections.config” allready exists in the drop location and deletes it. If the “Pre-Build” wouldn’t be run, then the old (existing) file will not be overwritten!
The “Post-Build” checks if a specific developer configuration is found and copy/rename it to the drop location. If no one exists, the standard shared config will be used as defined in the project’s include.

Currently I’m looking at the Rosario CTP’s, what’s new and hot. So this post will hopefully be the first of a series about small enhancements which helps you in the daily work.

Work Item Queries

It’s now possible to group your queries in folders.

In VSTS 2008, I created/changed the queries with a prefix for example the “RE – User Stories” or “DEV – My Tasks”. Because if you have many queries, it’s nice to have some sorting. In Rosario you could make folders by process role. Nice!

This is my second post about errors which can occur while installing Team Foundation Server.

If you find errors like this in your event log:

Source:	MSSQLSERVER
Event ID:	18456
Description:	Login failed for user ‘NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM’. [CLIENT: <local machine>]

Source:	Report Server Windows
Event ID:	107
Description:	Report Server Windows Service (MSSQLSERVER) cannot connect to the report server database.

and/or for example the TFSSchedulerService does not start after reboot, your SQL services might start to slow. This happens mostly if you install TFS in Single-Server mode.
Other services trying to connect to databases in the SQL Server but this is not completely up and running. To avoid this problem you need to delay loading this specific services.

Go to the registry editor and add a Multi-String Value to the corresponding service entry:

Key: \HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services\ReportServer
Right click “New Multi-String Value”
Name: DependOnService
Value: MSSQLSERVER

Do this for all services like ReportServer and TFSSchedulerService. There is also a Knowledge-Base article here.

Do you want to checkin your files from the Windows Explorer (Shell Integration) like with Subversion add-ins?

Some people don’t want or need a Visual Studio Team Explorer, because they are none Microsoft-based developers like Oracle DBA’s. But you want to use Team Foundation Server as your source control repository by default, because you like the integration of work items or the main development of your project is in .NET.

Unfortunately, this is by default not available from TFS. But there are two tools around which are closing this gap!

• LizardTF which is open source
• Dubblebock TFS from Benjamin Day Consulting for about $25 per user

I hope Microsoft will implement this in a future release by it’s own. But there’s now no excuse anymore to say you need a Subversion repository because of the shell integration.