What is a .dbml.layout file for?

Question

What is a .dbml.layout file for? Is it important? Or, maybe, it just stores the placing of blocks in the designer and can be deleted?

I've got this question because I want to edit the .dbml file manually and need to know if I must edit .dbml.layout accordingly or can just delete it to get it recreated automatically. Luckily it seems for me that it is indeed autogenerated.

Answer 1

The layout file is just to show you how your model classes are laid out in the designer. I don't believe it has any information about the actual schema etc. If your experimentation shows that it's being regenerated for you and you don't mind losing any custom layouts you've created to make the diagram simpler to understand, it should be fine to delete it.

Answer 2

not quite. the designer file stores the code generated by the designer that you use to access the database it literally is the linq to SQL classes the designer the dbml file is just an XML document that you can actually open and edit manually tho this not recommended for a beginner