ADO.NET Entity Framework

Some weeks ago Microsoft released Beta 3 of the ADO.NET Entity Framework. The Entity Framework looks like a interesting technology which is more powerful and advanced than LINQ to SQL. Both technologies have a different kind of philosophy but several features have similar implementations.

I’ve started writing a series of articles about it. These articles will not explain all details about the Entity Framework nor compare everything with LINQ to SQL. But I will try to create a small tutorial on how to start with the Entity Framework using the Northwind sample database. If possible I will refer to LINQ to SQL features.

The first article covers following topics :

• Introduction
• The Entity Framework architecture
• Installation
• Generate an Entity Data Model
• The Entity Data Model (EDM)
• LINQ to SQL Diagram vs. Entity Data Model
• Names of EntityTypes and EntitySets
• Scheme file (EDMX)
• Model Browser
• Mapping Details
• Generated entity classes
• Documentation
• Entity SQL
• ObjectQuery queries which return entity types
• ObjectQuery queries with parameters
• ObjectQuery queries which return primitive types
• ObjectQuery queries which return anonymous types
• EntityCommand queries which return entity types
• EntityCommand queries which return anonymous types
• EntityCommand queries with parameters
• LINQ to Entities
• LINQ queries with parameters
• LINQ queries which return anonymous types
• View SQL statements
• SQL profiling tools
• ToTraceString method
• Tools
• eSqlBlast
• LINQPad
• Add, update and delete entities
• Update (modify) an entity
• Add (create) and entity
• Add (create) entity with associated entities
• Delete an entity
• Concurrency handling
• Set ConcurrencyMode
• Resolve concurrency conflicts
• Change tracking
• ObjectStateManager
• Dump() & DumpAsHtml() extension methods
• NoTracking option
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