Understanding SQL Server Connection Strings

Many people start learning SQL Server, because they want to use a database in application development. You can develop web or client applications with a retail version of Visual Studio or the free edition, Visual Studio 2010 Express (there is also a new product called Web Matrix that we hope to talk about in future posts). A connection string specifies how to connect to your SQL Server database. Development tools can hide or create this connection string for you, but it helps to know how to create one and what it means. In this post, we’ll cover the basics, provide some examples, and point to tools that automatically generate connection strings.