XML data type

Question

How do I set EF to use an SQL datatype of XML for an object? Moreover, how does one create SQL computed columns.

We store alot of dynamic data that some folks cause meta data per row/record, it isn't standard and therefore we rely upon the xml data structure and then use computed columns to create so keys that we may use for faster SQL searches.

Quite frankly - an expando object mapping to an xml column would really float our boat.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

The original question was:

How do I set EF to use an SQL datatype of XML for an object?

In code first, you can do it like this:

[Column(TypeName="xml")]
public string Foo {get; set;}

Or through the fluent api:

modelBuilder.Entity<MyEntity>()
            .Property(x => x.Foo)
            .HasColumnType("xml");

You still need to interpret the property as a string and you're on your own for converting it to xml within C#. But this way it will get generated as an xml column and you can still perform direct sql queries against it using sql's xml functions.