Check if Database Exists Before Creating

As of SQL Server 2005, the old-style sysobjects and sysdatabases and those catalog views have been deprecated. Do this instead – use the sys. schema – views like sys.databases

private static bool CheckDatabaseExists(SqlConnection tmpConn, string databaseName)
{
    string sqlCreateDBQuery;
    bool result = false;

    try
    {
        tmpConn = new SqlConnection("server=(local)\\SQLEXPRESS;Trusted_Connection=yes");

        sqlCreateDBQuery = string.Format("SELECT database_id FROM sys.databases WHERE Name="{0}"", databaseName);

        using (tmpConn)
        {
            using (SqlCommand sqlCmd = new SqlCommand(sqlCreateDBQuery, tmpConn))
            {
                tmpConn.Open();

                object resultObj = sqlCmd.ExecuteScalar();

                int databaseID = 0;    

                if (resultObj != null)
                {
                    int.TryParse(resultObj.ToString(), out databaseID);
                }

                tmpConn.Close();

                result = (databaseID > 0);
            }
        }
    } 
    catch (Exception ex)
    { 
        result = false;
    }

    return result;
}

This will work with any database name you pass in as a parameter, and it will return a bool true = database exists, false = database does not exist (or error happened).