Managing lifetime of DataContext object

[NewsBot]

Question to all of you folks out there that are already proficient with LINQ.* I'm updating one of my older 2.0 apps to be 3.5 and ripping out most of my database code and replacing with LINQ.* The long and short of the situation is that for any specific form, there is a separate DataContext associated with it that performs the various updates, queries, etc. as needed.

 

What I'm wondering is the best way to manage the lifetime of the DataContext.* I don't want to just instantiate it and leave it there for each form, as it could potentially be alive for several hours.* Does it make sense to do something like the following for various operations:

 

_mdc = new MyDataContext();

// Operations here

_mdc.Dispose();

 

Or is it more appropriate to specifically just close the connection, like:

 

_mdc.Connection.Open();

// Operations here

_mdc.Connection.Close();

 

Are there*recommended 'best practices'*for this sort of thing?

 

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