SqlClient Support for LocalDB
This article discusses how to connect to a LocalDB database. LocalDB is a lightweight version of SQL Server.
Remarks
To summarize what you can do with LocalDB:
Create and start LocalDB instances with sqllocaldb.exe or your app.config file.
Use sqlcmd.exe to add and modify databases in a LocalDB instance. For example,
sqlcmd -S (localdb)\myinst
.Use the
AttachDBFilename
connection string keyword to add a database to your LocalDB instance. When usingAttachDBFilename
, if you do not specify the name of the database with theDatabase
connection string keyword, the database will be removed from the LocalDB instance when the application closes.Specify a LocalDB instance in your connection string. For example, your instance name is
myInstance
, the connection string would include:server=(localdb)\\myInstance
User Instance=True
is not allowed when connecting to a LocalDB database.
For information about installing LocalDB, see SQL Server Express LocalDB.
Programmatically Create a Named Instance
An application can create a named instance and specify a database as follows:
Specify the LocalDB instances to create in the app.config file, as follows. The version number of the instance should be the same as the version number of your LocalDB installation.
<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8" ?> <configuration> <configSections> <section name="system.data.localdb" type="System.Data.LocalDBConfigurationSection,System.Data,Version=4.0.0.0,Culture=neutral,PublicKeyToken=b77a5c561934e089"/> </configSections> <system.data.localdb> <localdbinstances> <add name="myInstance" version="11.0" /> </localdbinstances> </system.data.localdb> </configuration>
Specify the name of the instance using the
server
connection string keyword. The instance name specified in theserver
connection string keyword must match the name specified in the app.config file.Use the
AttachDBFilename
connection string keyword to specify the .MDF file.