For one of my projects, i need to develop a product in .net which will be connecting to a company's database to run specific queries. The database is unknown at development time.

1. Which component is able to let the user dynamically select a database connection and return a connection string such that i can save it? Or is there a better way to do this in .net code easily?

2. Given that connection string, and a usergiven query for that database, for how can i run that query? Is there a generic datareader, executescalar, etc

 any help much appreciated!!!!!

Lisa

You can take a user entered connection string and assign it to a new connection object.

A user entered query can be executed to a datareader and then you could use the datareader as the datasource for a databound control (datagrid, gridview, etc). Without explicit column definitions and default settings those controls should simply display all the raw data as it is in the data reader.

-Peter

You can also take a look at the *ConnectionStringBuilder classes that should help you build the connection string:

http://msdn2.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ms254947(VS.80).aspx

Imar


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Imar Spaanjaars
http://Imar.Spaanjaars.Com
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