I have a whole slew of database access functions which assume a particular connection string. Within my application I call
myList = DB_MyTable.GetTableItems()
and within GetTableItems() I have something like
Dim connection As SqlConnection = MyDB.GetConnection
So the connection string is in one place in the code, and I call a method to get it.
What I'm running into now is I want to reuse the same database functions, but with a different connection string. I can rewrite all of the functions like DB_MyTable.GetTableItems() easily because they're generated from a script, but within the main application code I'll need to take care of every function call that now needs to know what connection string I want to use.
I tried changing the arguments to GetTableItems() like this:
Public Shared Function GetTableItems(Optional ByVal useThisString as String = MyDB.GetConnection) As List(Of MyItems)
in hopes of being able to pass in, by default, the string I'm already using in most of the code, but I got an error saying that the default value had to be a constant expression. This would mean peppering a specific connection string everywhere, which I don't want to do.
Is there a way to accomplish what I'm after, or do I need to make the connection string a required argument and change all of the calls in my application to match the new signature?
Thanks as always!
Can you make your default value an empty string? Then, in your functions, if the useThisString variable is blank, then use default, else use the one you passed in? A littler dirtier, but just barely.