Monday, April 25, 2011

Entity Framework with XML Files

Can someone point me to a good tutorial explaining the Entity Framework using an XML file instead of a database? I have seen some good tutorials with SQL databases, but I can't make the leap to an XML file.

Thanks!

From stackoverflow
  • I don't think that's really possible.

    From MSDN (emphasis mine):

    The ADO.NET Entity Framework is designed to enable developers to create data access applications by programming against a conceptual application model instead of programming directly against a relational storage schema.

  • Entity Framework itself is provider-based, and is designed to operate over a relational database. If you really wanted to, you could write your own provider for EF that reads from/writes to an xml file, but it would be a huge amount of work.

    I expect you should really be looking at one of:

    • LINQ-to-XML
    • XML (de)serialization
    • XPath/XQuery
    • XSLT

    Entity Framework doesn't have a natural fit in this scenario.

  • Linq to XML isn't all that much actually. I'd go with a serializable solution instead.

  • I like LINQ to XSD: http://linqtoxsd.codeplex.com/

    It is basically LINQ to XML with some classes derived from the XSD to ensure it fits the schema...

    benpage : i've found this tool very useful - however the context menu doesn't seem to show up in vs 2010..
  • You can use an oledb connection together with a FORXML command... but you will not have all functionality that is available with other providers...

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