Get the Entity Framework Connection String

Question

We use Entity Framework 5, but have a requirement to ALSO use a normal database connection from the application for some custom SQL we need to perform.

So, I am creating

Answer 1

//Entity Framework 5

myContext.Database.Connection.ConnectionString

//Entity Framework 6

myContext.Database.Connection.ConnectionString

//Entity Framework Core 1

myContext.Database.GetDbConnection().ConnectionString

Answer 2

I had this problem too, to solve the problem you can do this:

        SqlConnection con = context.Database.Connection as SqlConnection;
        SqlCommand command = new SqlCommand(sql, con);
        con.Open();

        SqlDataReader reader = command.ExecuteReader();
        while (reader.HasRows)
        {
            while (reader.Read())
            {
                //read your fields
            }

            reader.NextResult();
        }

        con.Close();

Answer 3

Here is a generic way of getting the connection string:

   public string GetConnString<T>(T ent)
            where T : ObjectContext
        {
            EntityConnection ec = (EntityConnection)ent.Connection;
            SqlConnection sc = (SqlConnection)ec.StoreConnection;
            return sc.ConnectionString;
        }

Then to use it would be:

 MyEntities ent = new MyEntities();
 String ConnString = GetConnString(ent);

Answer 4

In current versions of EF you can find the property here: dbContext.Database.TransactionManager.ConnectionString

Answer 5

Do you mean, can you use a SqlConnection with your EF DbContext?

The DbContext class has a constructor where you can pass in a SqlConnection, and then tell EF whether or not it owns it.

var YourContext = new YourContext(SqlConnection, true);

Answer 6

You can get the connectionstring used by EF by using the following:

MyDbContext.Database.Connection.ConnectionString

Or as mark says you can initalise the context with a sqlconnection