Test to see if Entity Framework is connected to something

Question

Test to see if Entity Framework is connected to something

.net entity-framework

Question

When you create a new EntityCollection object, the connection doesn't attempt to open the database until you try and do something with that collection. I need to determine whether or not an Entity collection has a valid connection or not, and I can't find an efficient method of doing it.

Currently I've got this in my code:

var db = new MyEntityCollection();

try
{
     var checkworking = from c in db.Customers select c;
}
catch 
{ 
     ConnectToBackUp();
}

Which is not only horrible code, but very slow since it waits an age to determine whether or not the connection is active before throwing an exception.

I know I can control how long it waits before giving up by using ConnectionTimeout but that's just another ugly hack that makes a bad situation worse.

Surely there's a better way of doing this?

Bob Tway

Popular Answer

Simplest:

private bool TestConnection()
{
    var db = new MyEntityCollection();
    int oldTimeOut = db.CommandTimeout;

    try
    {
       db.CommandTimeout = 1;
       db.Connection.Open();   // check the database connection
       return true;
    }
    catch 
    { 
       return false;
    }
    finally 
    {
       db.CommandTimeout = oldTimeOut;
    }
}

Update for EF6:

using System.Data.Common;
...

public bool TestConnection() {
    using (var db = new MyEntityCollection()) {
        DbConnection conn = db.Database.Connection;
        try {
            conn.Open();   // check the database connection
            return true;
        }
        catch {
            return false;
        }
    }
}

Gianpiero Caretti

View more on Stack Overflow

Bob Tway · Accepted Answer · 2/23/2011 11:49:54 AM

Solved this by going around the houses a bit and building a new connection string to test with ADO. Still involves using a try catch but it's a lot faster:

    private bool TestConnection()
    {
        EntityConnectionStringBuilder b = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder();
        ConnectionStringSettings entityConString = ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyEntityConnectionString"];
        b.ConnectionString = entityConString.ConnectionString;
        string providerConnectionString = b.ProviderConnectionString;

        SqlConnectionStringBuilder conStringBuilder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder();
        conStringBuilder.ConnectionString = providerConnectionString;
        conStringBuilder.ConnectTimeout = 1;
        string constr = conStringBuilder.ConnectionString;

        using (SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(constr))
        {
            try
            {
                conn.Open();
                return true;
            }
            catch
            {
                return false;
            }
        }
    }

Test to see if Entity Framework is connected to something

Question

Fastest Entity Framework Extensions

Accepted Answer

Popular Answer

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