SQL Server Database Change Listener C#

I want to listen for changes to data in a SQL Server database from C#. I was hoping that there would be some sort of listener which I could use to determine if data that I have is stale. Despite being a fairly common scenario I can't find any solutions which aren't to simply poll the database.

I use Linq-To-SQL to access the data and hence have a DataContext object, I was hoping I could listen for an on data changed event but I can't seem to find one.

I appreciate that it's a non-trivial barrier (From C# method to SQL Server DB), the reason I expected this to be a solved problem is that it's a common requirement for GUIs. If it's not possible to Listen for updates how to you keep the Data displayed in a GUI fresh (When it's backed by a SQL Server data source).

Although this isn't for GUI work I was expecting to adapt something from that realm.

Is there a way to subscribe to SQL Server database change events in C#?

Solution 1:

I've never used them before, but have you tried SQL Server Events notifications? See this article: Getting Started with SQL Server Event Notifications

Solution 2:

You're looking for the SqlDependency class, which allows you to listen for changes to the resultset of a SQL query.