C# - Get file path from connection string

Is there an existing method in C# to extract the file path from a string that represents a ConnectionString to a SqlCE .sdf file? I want to check if the file exists at initialization and back it up if the file has been modified.

Sample connection string:开发者_如何学JAVA

strConn = "Data Source=|DataDirectory|\dbAlias.sdf";

You can use SqlCeConnectionStringBuilder class to parse existing Sql Compact connection string.

A bit late perhaps, but I came across this question wile struggling with the same problem. You can find the location of the |DataDirectory| folder with AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetData("DataDirectory"). So your connectionstring can be translated like this:

strConn .Replace("|DataDirectory|", AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetData("DataDirectory").ToString())

You could just create the connection and get the data source from it as a property:

string data;
using (var conn = new SqlConnection(connectionString)) {
    data = conn.DataSource;
}

For LocalDB and SqlConnection (not CE):

public static string GetFilePathFromConnectionString(string connectionString)
{
    var attachDbFileName = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(connectionString).AttachDBFilename;
    return attachDbFileName.Replace("|DataDirectory|", AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetData("DataDirectory").ToString());
}