This library is designed to allow the creation of LocalDb databases via C#. Mainly used to write integration tests, you get a fully functional SQL database that has full SQL Express capabilities.

To use this library, you will need SQL Express 2012 or SQL Express 2014 versions of LocalDb installed. We recommend you installing both via Chocolatey.

Install via:

Install-Package RimDev.Automation.Sql

The LocalDb class will perform the following tasks:

1. Create the database files in the path specified
2. Connect the files to your Localdb instance
3. Return a connection string that can be utilized with any SQL Capable tool (ORM, Mini-ORM, ADO.NET)

To use the class, do the following in your test.

using (var database = new LocalDb()) {
  // your code goes here
}

A simple use case utilizing ADO.NET would look something like this.

using (var database = new LocalDb())
{
  using (var connection = database.OpenConnection())
  {
    var command =
       new SqlCommand("CREATE TABLE Customers (" +
          "DrvLicNbr NVarChar(50), " +
          "DateIssued Date," +
          "DateExpired Date," +
          "FullName nvarchar(120)," +
          "Address NVARCHAR(120)," +
          "City nvarchar(50)," +
          "State nvarchar(100)," +
          "PostalCode nvarchar(20)," +
          "HomePhone nvarchar(20)," +
          "OrganDonor bit);",
          connection);

        // created a new table
        command.ExecuteNonQuery();
  }
}

The LocalDB class is initialized completely via the constructor. There are four options you may set. All are optional.

1. Database name : The name of the database as seen in SQL Server Management studio. If not specified the naming will be localdb_<DateTime.Not.Ticks>.
2. Version : There are two versions supported for LocalDB, which are v11 and v12. By default we try to use v11 as it is most likely installed.
3. Location : The location where the database files will be created (log and mdf). By default it will be in Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().Location.
4. Database prefix : This is used as the prefix when creating the database name, if the database name is not specified. By default this value is "localdb".

Notice each are optional and there are safe rational defaults.

You may have LocalDB installed, but never initialized the instance on your machine. Run this command via command prompt.

LocalDB SQL EXPRESS 2014

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\120\Tools\Binn\SqlLocalDB.exe" create "v12.0" 12.0 -s

LocalDB SQL Express 2012

"C:\Program Files\Microsoft SQL Server\110\Tools\Binn\SqlLocalDB.exe" create "v11.0" 11.0 -s

Verify that the command worked by using SQL Server Management Studio to connect to the instance.

• Khalid Abuhakmeh (@buhakmeh)
• Justin Rusbatch (@jrusbatch)

Thanks to Ritter IM for supporting OSS.