Can you simplify this username/pw check code?

Hi, I have a bit of code that checks a user's password after they try to login from a barebone login form. I've removed password encryption and try/catches to simplify the code.

What I want to know: Can I do this faster/better/easier?

 public bool verifyUser(string username, string password)
    {
        //try
        //{
            sqlConn = new SqlConnection(connectionString);
            sqlConn.Open();

            SqlCommand selectCommand = sqlConn.CreateCommand();
            selectCommand.Parameters.Add(new SqlParameter("@username", username));
            selectCommand.CommandText =
                "SELECT password FROM usersTable WHERE username = @username";

            SqlDataReader selectCommandReader = selectCommand.ExecuteReader();

            selectCommandReader.Read();

            if ((string)selectCommandReader["password"] == password)
            {
                return true;
            }
            else
            {
                return false;
            }

        //}

Code (markup):

I feel as if it could be more simple, but I'm not sure how.

 

I believe that you get an exception if the user does not exist and you run selectCommandReader.Read(); You can likely cut down on some overhead by adding

if(selectCommandReader.Read())
{
if ((string)selectCommandReader["password"] == password)
{
return true;
}
else
{
return false;
}

}
else { return false; }


Besides that, I don't see any steps you can cut out.

 

cool thanks for your reply

question about what you wrote:

if(selectCommandReader.Read())
{
}

Code (markup):

So SelectCommandReader.Read() will be false if the query returns nothing? Previously I was contemplating checking for a null or something like that... at the moment the whole thing is in a try/catch, and in the catch I close the sqlConn and return false. I would much rather use your suggestion if does what I think it does.

 

Correct. .Read() will return a boolean false if there are no results found (and true if their is).

This is also useful for going through multiple results using a while loop

while(selectCommandReader.Read())
{

}

Will execute until it gets to the end of the result set.