Product Documentation

Database Administrator's Guide

Previous Topic

Next Topic

ADO.NET Entity Framework

The FairCom DB SQL ADO.NET Data Provider has support for Entity Framework through V7.

System Requirements

The minimum development system requirements for FairCom DB SQL ADO.NET Entity Framework support are listed below. Note that they require the complete version (e.g., the complete version, not just the "client" version):

  • Visual Studio 2008 Service Pack 1 or greater
  • FairCom DB V11.5 requires Microsoft .NET 4.0 Framework.
  • FairCom DB V11.0 requires Microsoft .NET 4.0 Framework.
  • FairCom DB V10.3 requires Microsoft .NET 4.0 Framework.
  • FairCom DB V10 requires at least Framework Version 3.5 SP1

Auto Incrementing Field Type Restriction

Entity Framework Models allow Int16, Int32 or Int64 field types to be specified as Auto Incrementing in model design. Auto Incrementing fields are also known as Identity fields in some schemas.

FairCom DB SQL allows one user Auto Incrementing field type. Note that FairCom DB already supported a serial segment field, currently used by default as the ROWID value. As there is a limitation of one SRLSEG field type per data file (table), this precluded the addition of a user-defined field. An IDENTITY attribute is now available for this purpose.

Other Known Limitations

The following are other known FairCom DB SQL limitations that can be encountered when using Entity Framework support. These are in various stages of development. Contact your nearest FairCom office for the latest information concerning specific support for these items.

  • The SKIP operator is not currently supported. The SKIP operator is commonly used with the TOP operator for “paging” purposes.
  • The EXCEPT operator is not currently supported.
  • Parameters are not currently supported in functions and in the TOP operator.
  • BIT (Boolean) columns can currently only be tested against 1 or 0 (that is, if ( bitColumn == 1 ). Entity Framework requires a test against true/false (for example, if ( bitColumn == true ) or more simply if ( bitColumn )

TOCIndex