ADO.NET: Does ExecuteScalar close the connection automatically?

Question

Does ExecuteScalar close the connection automatically?

Answer 1

That depends.
One can write an implementation of IDbCommand that will close the connection.
But as far as I know the provided implementations does not close the connection.

Answer 2

No, you need to explicitly open and close the connection when using ExecuteScalar().

Answer 3

You could create an overload using an extension method though I'm not sure if it's a good idea.

public static object ExecuteScalar(this IDbCommand Command, bool CloseConnetion)
{
    object obj = Command.ExecuteScalar();        

    if(CloseConnection && Command.Connection.State != ConnectionState.Closed)
        Command.Connection.Close();    

    return obj;

}