How can I generate database tables from C# classes?

Question

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.

Answer 1

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.