How do you dynamically plug a different database into your linq to sql data classes?

Question

Suppose you have a single web portal application that is used by a number of different clients. For reasons of security and portability, each client's data must reside in a separate database. The schema for each of these databases is absolutely identical.

How does one go about accessing these separate databases from a single SQL Server, and how does one tell the Linq to SQL data classes which database to access?

Answer 1

Just pass it the connection string to the DataContext constructor.

Example:

var dataContext = new FooDataContext ("SomeConnectionStringDependingOnWhichDataBaseToHit");

Every query that you generate based on that data context will hit the DB pointed on the connection string.

Answer 2

All objects in the context are defined using two part names (schema.object) and at runtime you just create the context using a connection string pointing to the right database.

Answer 3

You can add as many Linq to Sql classes that you need.