C# perform a TNSPing programmatically

Is it possible to开发者_运维技巧 perform a TNSPing on an Oracle Database programmatically?

I'm aware I could probably call the TNSPing program and parse any output generated but I'm looking for a more robust method of handling the database TNS Ping.

Having seen the Ping class on MSDN, I tried to use the example code found, but I think I would need some way to resolve the TNS name into an actual IP address for this method to work. Is this possible?

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This Forum seems to suggest that attempting to use TNSPing is a waste of time and that actually attempting the connection would be of more use!

It seems that catching the exceptions that might get raised during communications with a database might be the only reliable way to test that an oracle database is still there.

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Not sure you can directly - it's the Oracle client software that resolves the TNS name to an IP address and I don't know of any call on the Oracle.DataAccess.Client that would do that for you.