Same connection even though the ODBC data source has changed

Question

I have a .Net service that has a list of strings containing ODBC connections and I use these in a loop to check multiple databases for tasks to process (eg. polling).

However if i change where an ODBC connection points to..by changing its default database for some reason, even though i'm only storing the string name of the ODBC connection it doesn't pick up the change until i restart the application.

Is .net somehow caching all the odbc connections on startup??

How can i work around this?

Cheers.

Answer 1

If your settings are stored in the app.config, here is a question that might help:

http://stackoverflow.com/questions/436700/is-switching-app-config-at-runtime-possible

Answer 2

Check if the Connection Pooling is enabled for the ODBC driver you are using at the ODBC Data Sources control panel window (this is not a .NET issue). A successful connection will stay in the pool without refreshing its new connection properties.