New Instance of object skipping overloaded constructor

Question

Using vs2012, I've got a Test Unit project (for testing a Service) that incorporates an .edmx file and linq. The edmx is created at design time and I have created an object (called Store.Data.Common) that retrieves the connection string from the App.Config file (decrypts the string and builds the entire string including the meta data):

//Object is called Store.Data.Common
public static string GetConnectionString(string databaseName)
{
    var security = new Security();

    var connectionString = security.GetDecoded(ConfigurationManager.ConnectionStrings[databaseName+"Encrypted"].ToString(), 0);
    var environment = ConfigurationManager.AppSettings["Environment"].ToString();
    var dataSource = security.GetDecoded(ConfigurationManager.AppSettings[environment], 0);

    connectionString = string.Format(connectionString, dataSource);

    return connectionString;
}

I've also modified the .tt files to include an overload of the constructor to call this method to build the connection string, like so:

//Original Constructor which I modified and added the parameter to pass to the other constructor.
public StoreContext()
 : base("name=StoreContext")
{
}

//Constructor I added:
public StoreContext(string connection)
{
    Store.Data.Common.ConnectionBuilder.GetConnectionString("StoreContext");
}

Everything builds correctly, however, when I try to new-up an object for the StoreContext and leave the constructor empty, it never gets to the second constructor:

StoreContext storeContext = new StoreContext();

When I debug this test and walk through it, it only gets to the first constructor and that's it. Obviously, if I do something like this:

StoreContext storeContext = new StoreContext("Blah");

Then it goes to the second one as expected....by my question is, why doesn't the first method work when passing nothing to the constructor? Technically it should work, right?

Answer 1

I think you mean to use

public StoreContext()
  : this("name=StoreContext")
{
}

(using this rather than base).

using this() means you're calling a constructor on the same class. When you say base() you're trying to call a constructor on the base class.

Edit: It also doesn't look like you're using the parameter you're passing into that non-default constructor. But that's another issue, not the root of your problem.