Firebird ADO.NET provider supports a new class (FbConnectionStringBuilder) that makes the work with connection strings much easier:

1. Parsing a connection string

Create a new instance using public FbConnectionStringBuilder(string) constructor (it takes an existing connection string as a parameter). Then you can read the connection string values by using the FbConnectionStringBuilder properties. Example of reading the DataSource (server address) property:

FbConnectionStringBuilder csb = new FbConnectionStringBuilder("User=SYSDBA;Password=masterkey;Database=SampleDatabase.fdb;DataSource=localhost;Charset=NONE;");
Console.WriteLine(csb.DataSource);

2. Creating a connection string programmatically

You can create a connection string by specifying the properties item by item:

FbConnectionStringBuilder csb = new FbConnectionString();
csb.UserID = "SYSDBA";
csb.Password = "masterkey";
csb.Database = "mydb.fdb";
csb.ServerType = 1; // embedded Firebird

FbConnection c = new FbConnection(csb.ToString());

3. Modifying an existing connection string

You can also modify an existing connection string without complicated parsing. This example switches the type of server to embedded Firebird:

FbConnectionStringBuilder csb = new FbConnectionString(existingConnectionString);
csb.ServerType = 1;

FbConnection c = new FbConnection(csb.ToString());