C# – How to generate database tables from C# classes

ccode generationdata access

Does anyone know a way to auto-generate database tables for a given class? I'm not looking for an entire persistence layer – I already have a data access solution I'm using, but I suddenly have to store a lot of information from a large number of classes and I really don't want to have to create all these tables by hand. For example, given the following class:

class Foo
{
    private string property1;
    public string Property1
    {
        get { return property1; }
        set { property1 = value; }
    }

    private int property2;
    public int Property2
    {
        get { return property2; }
        set { property2 = value; }
    }
}

I'd expect the following SQL:

CREATE TABLE Foo
(
    Property1 VARCHAR(500),
    Property2 INT
)

I'm also wondering how you could handle complex types. For example, in the previously cited class, if we changed that to be :

class Foo
{
    private string property1;
    public string Property1
    {
        get { return property1; }
        set { property1 = value; }
    }

    private System.Management.ManagementObject property2;
    public System.Management.ManagementObject Property2
    {
        get { return property2; }
        set { property2 = value; }
    }
}

How could I handle this?

I've looked at trying to auto-generate the database scripts by myself using reflection to enumerate through each class' properties, but it's clunky and the complex data types have me stumped.

Best Answer

It's really late, and I only spent about 10 minutes on this, so its extremely sloppy, however it does work and will give you a good jumping off point:

using System;
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Text;
using System.Reflection;

namespace TableGenerator
{
    class Program
    {
        static void Main(string[] args)
        {
            List<TableClass> tables = new List<TableClass>();

            // Pass assembly name via argument
            Assembly a = Assembly.LoadFile(args[0]);

            Type[] types = a.GetTypes();

            // Get Types in the assembly.
            foreach (Type t in types)
            {
                TableClass tc = new TableClass(t);                
                tables.Add(tc);
            }

            // Create SQL for each table
            foreach (TableClass table in tables)
            {
                Console.WriteLine(table.CreateTableScript());
                Console.WriteLine();
            }

            // Total Hacked way to find FK relationships! Too lazy to fix right now
            foreach (TableClass table in tables)
            {
                foreach (KeyValuePair<String, Type> field in table.Fields)
                {
                    foreach (TableClass t2 in tables)
                    {
                        if (field.Value.Name == t2.ClassName)
                        {
                            // We have a FK Relationship!
                            Console.WriteLine("GO");
                            Console.WriteLine("ALTER TABLE " + table.ClassName + " WITH NOCHECK");
                            Console.WriteLine("ADD CONSTRAINT FK_" + field.Key + " FOREIGN KEY (" + field.Key + ") REFERENCES " + t2.ClassName + "(ID)");
                            Console.WriteLine("GO");

                        }
                    }
                }
            }
        }
    }

    public class TableClass
    {
        private List<KeyValuePair<String, Type>> _fieldInfo = new List<KeyValuePair<String, Type>>();
        private string _className = String.Empty;

        private Dictionary<Type, String> dataMapper
        {
            get
            {
                // Add the rest of your CLR Types to SQL Types mapping here
                Dictionary<Type, String> dataMapper = new Dictionary<Type, string>();
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(int), "BIGINT");
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(string), "NVARCHAR(500)");
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(bool), "BIT");
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(DateTime), "DATETIME");
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(float), "FLOAT");
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(decimal), "DECIMAL(18,0)");
                dataMapper.Add(typeof(Guid), "UNIQUEIDENTIFIER");

                return dataMapper;
            }
        }

        public List<KeyValuePair<String, Type>> Fields
        {
            get { return this._fieldInfo; }
            set { this._fieldInfo = value; }
        }

        public string ClassName
        {
            get { return this._className; }
            set { this._className = value; }
        }

        public TableClass(Type t)
        {
            this._className = t.Name;

            foreach (PropertyInfo p in t.GetProperties())
            {
                KeyValuePair<String, Type> field = new KeyValuePair<String, Type>(p.Name, p.PropertyType);

                this.Fields.Add(field);
            }
        }

        public string CreateTableScript()
        {
            System.Text.StringBuilder script = new StringBuilder();

            script.AppendLine("CREATE TABLE " + this.ClassName);
            script.AppendLine("(");
            script.AppendLine("\t ID BIGINT,");
            for (int i = 0; i < this.Fields.Count; i++)
            {
                KeyValuePair<String, Type> field = this.Fields[i];

                if (dataMapper.ContainsKey(field.Value))
                {
                    script.Append("\t " + field.Key + " " + dataMapper[field.Value]);
                }
                else
                {
                    // Complex Type? 
                    script.Append("\t " + field.Key + " BIGINT");
                }

                if (i != this.Fields.Count - 1)
                {
                    script.Append(",");
                }

                script.Append(Environment.NewLine);
            }

            script.AppendLine(")");

            return script.ToString();
        }
    }
}

I put these classes in an assembly to test it:

public class FakeDataClass
{
    public int AnInt
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public string AString
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public float AFloat
    {
        get;
        set;
    }

    public FKClass AFKReference
    {
        get;
        set;
    }
}

public class FKClass
    {
        public int AFKInt
        {
            get;
            set;
        }
    }

And it generated the following SQL:

CREATE TABLE FakeDataClass
(
         ID BIGINT,
         AnInt BIGINT,
         AString NVARCHAR(255),
         AFloat FLOAT,
         AFKReference BIGINT
)


CREATE TABLE FKClass
(
         ID BIGINT,
         AFKInt BIGINT
)


GO
ALTER TABLE FakeDataClass WITH NOCHECK
ADD CONSTRAINT FK_AFKReference FOREIGN KEY (AFKReference) REFERENCES FKClass(ID)
GO

Some further thoughts...I'd consider adding an attribute such as [SqlTable] to your classes, that way it only generates tables for the classes you want. Also, this can be cleaned up a ton, bugs fixed, optimized (the FK Checker is a joke) etc etc...Just to get you started.

Related Topic