LINQ To SQL in Compact Framework

Question

Im on to design my Data Access for a new solution i create. That solution though contains Compact Framework Device Application and libraries besides Desktop. All .NET 3.5. Desktop will handle all Data Access basically. I need the Data Objects to have in CF too, Desktop will communicate with SQL and then with Mobile and give the appropriate data...

I love LINQ, and more i love LINQ 2 SQL. There is a lot of hype out there and i don't buy internal Microsoft politics about recommending EF. For now EF is too heavy and too complex for someone to choose it besides it still evolving and EF 4 will have major changes when it comes in a few months. But i cant wait for months to create a project as every developer in here, i want something now! After that said i want to use LINQ 2 SQL, my problem is that i cant just copy the generated dbml and use the generated classes. I don't need the DataContext cause i don't intend to use CRUD or any operations on a database with the Mobile App. i Just want the Objects. Anyone ever came in a situation like this? The whole point is not to write all classes representing the tables by hand. Cause i need them for further LINQ to Objects manipulation.

Basically an ORM supporting CF would do the job! But i don't know any incompatibilities i would meet.

Answer 1

I've been able to modify SubSonic 3.0, the db4o/Mainsoft port of System.Linq.Expressions from the Mono project after adding the missing Queryable sources, and Matt Warren's IQToolkit on Codeplex to provide a L2S equivalent on the CF.

This is about what it takes, though, since Linq expression trees are not supported on .Net CF 3.5.

I was able to use the DbEntityProvider/DbEntitySession and AttributeMapping/XMLMapping imported to Subsonic from IQToolkit to provide better entity and table-to-class mapping support.

Answer 2

L2S works great with the compact framework. You can't use the drag-and-drop designer, though. You'll need to run SQLMetal.exe yourself to generate the classes for you.

SQLMetal.exe: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386987.aspx

Example with Northwind compact: http://blogs.msdn.com/sqlservercompact/archive/2007/08/21/linq-with-sql-server-compact-a-ka-dlinq-over-sql-ce.aspx

Another example, with lots of pictures: http://pietschsoft.com/post/2009/01/Using-LINQ-to-SQL-with-SQL-Server-Compact-Edition.aspx