What is the reasoning behind a connection string in a .Net application being read-only

Question

I have come across this problem before and I have never understood the reasoning for it: in a desktop application developed in .Net the connection string is stored as a read-only value in the application's app config.

In every windows application I've written, the database needs to be set by the user: if I'm deploying an application to different sites it's unlikely they will be using the same database. Surely this is the common case for a desktop application? So why is the connection string made read-only in the framework?

Is it a case of the database framework designers thinking in terms of server applications and forgetting the desktop use-case?

Answer 1

Nothing requires that you place your connection strings in app.config. You can use settings files (which are updateable and user-specific), the windows registry, or any datastore you want. In those cases where the database is not configurable, app.config just makes an easy place to define the connection.

What you SHOULD avoid is encoding the user's password in the connection string, unless you are using connection string encryption in your config file.

Answer 2

Database connection info in an app.config for a desktop app sounds like a bad idea to me. Typically i would have a desktop app call to a web/wcf service, which in turn calls the DB (this way there is NO connection string stored on the client side)

It's probably a carry over from the way a lot of people do it on the server side. At least with Web apps, setting the connection string in the web.config file is a nice way to be able to change it without having to recompile.

If you want to allow the user to set thier own connection properties, a string in the app.config might be thought of as a DEFAULT setting.