DLinq Designer - Visual Drag and Drop O/R Mapping Design Surface in Visual Studio 2005 - DLinq Tutorials
by David Hayden ( C# .NET Programmer )
Filed: LINQ, O/R Mapper
The May 2006 CTP for LINQ includes a really cool DLinq Designer where you can build DLinq Classes manually, or more importantly, drag and drop existing tables on the DLinq Designer surface and have the c# or vb code for the classes automatically generated for you in the background.
If we take my previous example of a movie collection discussed in the following Dlinq tutorials:
I can add a DLinqObjects Item to my Visual Studio 2005 LINQ Windows application:
and drag my Genres and Movies SQL Server Tables to the DLinq Designer surface:
As you make changes on the DLinq Designer Surface, changes are made to the source code of the DLinq Classes in real-time:
[System.Data.DLinq.Table(Name="Genres")]
public partial class Genre :
System.Data.DLinq.INotifyPropertyChanging,
System.ComponentModel.INotifyPropertyChanged {
private int _ID;
private string _Name;
private System.Data.DLinq.EntitySet<Movie> _Movies;
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute()]
public Genre() {
this._Movies = new System.Data.DLinq.
EntitySet<Movie>(new System.Data.DLinq.Notification
<Movie>(this.Attach_Movies),
new System.Data.DLinq.Notification<Movie>
(this.Attach_Movies));
}
[System.Diagnostics.DebuggerNonUserCodeAttribute()]
[System.Data.DLinq.Column(Name="GenreId",
Storage="_ID", DBType="int NOT NULL IDENTITY",
Id=true, AutoGen=true)]
public virtual int ID {
get {
return this._ID;
}
set {
if ((this._ID != value)) {
this.OnPropertyChanging("ID");
this._ID = value;
this.OnPropertyChanged("ID");
}
}
}
...
Conclusion
There are a couple of really good options for building DLinq Classes based on existing tables in SQL Server: SqlMetal or DLinq Designer.
Source: David Hayden ( C# .NET Programmer )
Filed: LINQ, O/R Mapper