Pass connection string to code-first DbContext

A little late to the game here, but another option is:

public class NerdDinners : DbContext
{
    public NerdDinners(string connString)
    {
        this.Database.Connection.ConnectionString = connString;
    }
    public DbSet<Dinner> Dinners { get; set; }
}

After reading the docs, I have to pass the name of the connection string instead:

var db = new NerdDinners("NerdDinnerDb");

Thought I'd add this bit for people who come looking for "How to pass a connection string to a DbContext": You can construct a connection string for your underlying datastore and pass the entire connection string to the constructor of your type derived from DbContext.

(Re-using Code from @Lol Coder) Model & Context

public class Dinner
{
    public int DinnerId { get; set; }
    public string Title { get; set; }
}

public class NerdDinners : DbContext
{
    public NerdDinners(string connString)
        : base(connString)
    {
    }
    public DbSet<Dinner> Dinners { get; set; }
}

Then, say you construct a Sql Connection string using the SqlConnectioStringBuilder like so:

SqlConnectionStringBuilder builder = new SqlConnectionStringBuilder(GetConnectionString());

Where the GetConnectionString method constructs the appropriate connection string and the SqlConnectionStringBuilder ensures the connection string is syntactically correct; you may then instantiate your db conetxt like so:

var myContext = new NerdDinners(builder.ToString());