What is the use/advantage of using CommandBehavior.CloseConnection in ExecuteReader()

Question

Can anyone tell me what is the CommandBehavior.CloseConnection and what is the use/benefit of passing this as a parameter in com.ExecuteReader(CommandBeha

Answer 1

Use CommandBehavior.CloseConnection in functions that create a connection but return a IDataReader. Be very careful to Dispose() of the IDbConnection on exceptions only before the reader is created:

IDataReader ReadAll()
{
    var connection = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
    try
    {
        connection.Open();
        var command = connection.CreateCommand();
        command.CommandText = "SELECT * FROM mytable";
        var result = command.ExecuteReader(CommandBehavior.CloseConnection);
        connection = null; // Don't dispose the connection.
        return result;
    }
    finally
    {
        if (connection != null)
            connection.Dispose();
    }
}