Best Practices for Managing Linq to SQL Dbml Files

linq-to-sql

I've just started using Linq to SQL, and I'm wondering if anyone has any best practices they can share for managing dbml files.

How do you keep them up to date with the database?
Do you have a single dbml file for the entire database, or is it split into multiple logical units?
How does managing this file work in a team environment?

Any other tips and tricks welcome.

Best Answer

Have you looked at SqlMetal? It's officially supported, although not promoted too much. You can use it to build dbmls from the commandline - we've used it as part of a db's continous integration updates (make sure you have really good code separation if you do this though - partial classes are a saviour - as the dbml will get overwritten).

If I recall correctly it doesn't have quite the same features as the model designer in Visual Studio (I think it handles pluralisation differently). There a good post about it on Ben Hall's blog.

Related Solutions

.net – Entity Framework vs LINQ to SQL

LINQ to SQL only supports 1 to 1 mapping of database tables, views, sprocs and functions available in Microsoft SQL Server. It's a great API to use for quick data access construction to relatively well designed SQL Server databases. LINQ2SQL was first released with C# 3.0 and .Net Framework 3.5.

LINQ to Entities (ADO.Net Entity Framework) is an ORM (Object Relational Mapper) API which allows for a broad definition of object domain models and their relationships to many different ADO.Net data providers. As such, you can mix and match a number of different database vendors, application servers or protocols to design an aggregated mash-up of objects which are constructed from a variety of tables, sources, services, etc. ADO.Net Framework was released with the .Net Framework 3.5 SP1.

This is a good introductory article on MSDN: Introducing LINQ to Relational Data

C# – the syntax for an inner join in LINQ to SQL

It goes something like:

from t1 in db.Table1
join t2 in db.Table2 on t1.field equals t2.field
select new { t1.field2, t2.field3}

It would be nice to have sensible names and fields for your tables for a better example. :)

Update

I think for your query this might be more appropriate:

var dealercontacts = from contact in DealerContact
                     join dealer in Dealer on contact.DealerId equals dealer.ID
                     select contact;

Since you are looking for the contacts, not the dealers.

Best Answer

Related Solutions

.net – Entity Framework vs LINQ to SQL

C# – the syntax for an inner join in LINQ to SQL

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