I have a connection string (to an SQLServer 2005 database) which specifies a server, username and password, but does not specify an InitialCatalog. When I try and open connection it works, and I can list the tables, which lists a lot of tables, but not the table from the database I am interested in.
What is it I am connected to when no InitialCatalog is specified. Why is it valid?
If you do not specify the database, the default, as configured for the user will be used.
You can issue a "Use DatabaseName" statement to switch databases.
You can view the default database by looking at the properties of the user account. By default I believe it is the "master" database.
Each user has a default database. If you don't specify the initial catalog, you will connect to that database.