LINQ SQL Connection String Not Working When Read From TXT File

Question

I have finished building an application.

The last thing on my list was to put the SQL connection string in a file, rather than hardcoded (so that the user can edit it if ever need be).

The connection fails and I get an exception from DataContext.

The connection string is definitley correct. The only thing that has changed, since it was all working, is that I have put the connection string in a txt file rather than hard code it.

BEFORE (my app connected to database fine):

    private string conString = "Data Source=HP\\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=LeadSystem;Integrated Security=True";
    public LogIn()
    {

        dc = new MyDataContext(conString);
        if (dc.DatabaseExists())
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show("There has been an error, please try again. If ther problem persists, call you know who. Error: Can't connect to database! Make sure the network is all good (connection to ADMIN PC)" /*+ e.ToString()*/);
        }
    }

NOW (NOT WORKING):

    private string conString;
    public LogIn()
    {

    try
        {
            ConnectionString.globalConString = System.IO.File.ReadAllText("connString.txt").ToString();
            this.conString = ConnectionString.globalConString;
        }
        catch (IOException e)
        {
            MessageBox.Show("There was an error reading the conn string file.");
            return;
        }           

        dc = new MyDataContext(conString);
        if (dc.DatabaseExists())
        {
            InitializeComponent();
        }
        else
        {
            MessageBox.Show("There has been an error, please try again. If ther problem persists, call you know who. Error: Can't connect to database! Make sure the network is all good (connection to ADMIN PC)" /*+ e.ToString()*/);
        }
    }

The txt file simply contains:

Data Source=HP\\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=LeadSystem;Integrated Security=True

The file is in the correct location and the app can read it (I have outputted the string with MessageBox.Show()).

All I can think is that the string is not actually a string and is actually some strange format? I dunno.

BTW, the exception is thrown by the bit that tries to connect (not by the file reading bit - the code reads the file, but DataContext doesn't like the string that is passed to it).

Any ideas??

Thanks

Answer 1

Try removing the double \\ after HP:

Data Source=HP\SQLEXPRESS;Initial Catalog=LeadSystem;Integrated Security=True

The double backslash would have been valid when defining a C# string, because you'd need to escape the backslash character, but when read from a file, it would be viewed as two backslash characters.