The CData ADO.NET Provider for Microsoft Excel implements a standard DbConnection object in ExcelConnection. You can also use the ExcelConnectionStringBuilder to programmatically build, parse, and rebuild connection strings.

Creating Connection Objects

See Establishing a Connection for guides to defining the connection string and authenticating. Below is a typical invocation to create ExcelConnection objects.

C#

using (ExcelConnection connection =   
  new ExcelConnection("URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;"))  
{  
  connection.Open();  
}

VB.NET

Using connection As New ExcelConnection("URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;")
  connection.Open
End Using

Using ExcelConnectionStringBuilder

The following code example shows how to use an ADO.NET connection string builder to parse a connection string.

C#

ExcelConnectionStringBuilder builder =
  new ExcelConnectionStringBuilder("URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;");
  //Pass the connection string builder an existing connection string, and you can get and set any of the elements as strongly typed properties.
  builder.ConnectionString = "URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;";
  //Now that the connection string has been parsed,
  // you can work with individual items:
  builder.MyString = "new property";
  builder.MyBoolean = true;

  // You can refer to connection keys using strings, 
  // as well. 
  builder["Logfile"] = "test.log";
  builder["Verbosity"] = 5;

VB.NET

Dim builder As ExcelConnectionStringBuilder = New ExcelConnectionStringBuilder("URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;")
'Pass the connection string builder an existing connection string, and you can get and set any of the elements using strongly typed properties.
builder.ConnectionString = URI=C:\MyExcelWorkbooks\SampleWorkbook.xlsx;"
'Now that the connection string has been parsed,
' you can work with individual items:
builder.MyString = "new property"
builder.MyBoolean = True
  
' You can refer to connection keys using strings, 
' as well. 
builder("Logfile") = "test.log"
builder("Verbosity") = 5