Connecting to database in ASP.NET server control

Question

As a follow on from this question I'm building a custom server control to be placed on a Sharepoint 2010 master page.

The idea behind this is that it will display a menu that is dynamically populated from the database.

As this is a server control, I'm building it in a dll but I've run into a small snag. As it has to connect to the database, I need to store the connection string somewhere (and have it able to be configured based on target configuration (dev/test/prod).

I was intending to the user the Entity Framework as my ORM but i'm confused as to where the connection string is to be stored. In a normal ASP.NET web app it goes in the web.config, but this is a server control in a external DLL.

Where do I store the connection string so that I can just build and deploy the assembly containing the server control.

EDIT:
Before I post a bounty, I have tried using an embedded resource XML file to hold the connection string and while this works, I'm curious as to if this is best practice/a better way?

Answer 1

The connection string should be placed in whatever the application the .dll is in uses for its configuration file. Since this is ASP.NET, the web.config file will do nicely. When you invoke any methods from the DLL, you should pass the connection string to it as an object:

MyConnectionString
{
    get
    {
        return ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings["MyConnectionString"].ConnectionString
    }
}

usage:

using(SqlConnection conn = new SqlConnection(MyConnectionString))
{
    //other stuff here. Like making your command object, or passing it.. etc.)
}

Answer 2

I would recommend against having the control connect to the database. Instead, the user of the control should connect to the database, and then databind to the control.