Using Entity Framework with Oracle Database Alex Keh Principal Product Manager, Oracle

. Current Features . Upcoming Features . Using Sequences and Triggers . Data Type Mapping

. Entity Data Model Wizard and Designer . Query language interfaces – LINQ to Entities – Entity SQL – DML capabilities (insert/update/delete) . Entity Framework auto-generates DML statements for Oracle Database . Or use your own Oracle stored procedures for DML

. All standard ADO.NET APIs supported using ODP.NET – Use EntityClient or ObjectContext . No ODP.NET-specific APIs available, except… – Settings available in the Registry or .NET config files including ODP.NET connection string attributes – E.g. FetchSize, SelfTuning, DllPath, Max Pool Size, HA Events, Load Balancing, etc.

. Define .NET methods that map to stored procedures . Add Function Import dialog integration

. Use REF CURSORs from stored procedures . Available to both EF and non-EF scenarios – EF: one result set per stored procedure – Non-EF: one or more result set per stored procedure . Return types – Complex – read-only – Entity – read and updatable . Define result set bind and metadata info in .NET config

. Bind directly to stored procedure . Only bind by name supported, not bind by position . No .NET config changes necessary

// C# ObjectParameter oparam = new ObjectParameter(“oparam", typeof(decimal));

. Supported – Database-First – Model-First . Not supported (yet) – Code-First . Will be supported in an upcoming release

. .NET Framework 4 or higher – Supports EF 4 and higher – Supports DbContext APIs, but not Code First yet . Visual Studio 2010 or higher . ODAC – ODAC 11.2 Release 4 or higher – 32-bit and x64 – OUI and XCopy

. ODAC 11.2 Release 5 – Entity Framework 5 certification

. Boolean . SQL APPLY . Identity Column

. ODP.NET OracleBoolean data type – Use with PL/SQL Booleans only as a bind parameter . Use Booleans in Entity Framework Function Imports . Note: No SQL Boolean data type – Boolean cannot be a table column type

. New APPLY syntax – Each row returned by a query's outer table expression invokes a table-valued function – APPLY semantics equivalent to Oracle Lateral View . EF query pipeline generates APPLY – Tends to occur in queries with correlated subqueries – APPLY syntax not generally available outside SQL Server – No straightforward work around if encountering APPLY

. DB automatically generates auto-incrementing value as needed – Supports ANSI’s IDENTITY keyword . Benefit – Easier to set up auto incrementing values, such as for primary keys . Integrated with ODT and ODP.NET – E.g. ODT: Create table with auto-incrementing Identity column – E.g. ODP.NET: Add row without explicitly providing identity value

. Provides similar functionality to Identity column in Oracle DB 11g and earlier versions . How to set up – Create table with id column of type NUMBER – Create sequence to auto-increment numeric values – Create trigger to automatically insert the next number in sequence into id column

. Method 1 – Use a stored procedure which inserts data and calls a sequence to auto-increment the “identity” column . Method 2 – Use trigger to auto-increment “identity” column – EF supports server-generated auto-incremented values . StoreGeneratedPattern in SSDL – For Oracle DB . Set StoreGeneratedPattern=“Identity” manually in SSDL

. Use .NET config file for custom mapping Oracle NUMBER to .NET data types . Upper range defines the custom mapping

. WHERE clause slow when comparing two values – Occurs when one side is Unicode and the other side isn’t, which leads to data conversion – Solution: Use EntityFunctions.AsNonUnicode() on the string variable columns that are not N types – Comparison on DB is between two non-Unicode values . POCO class attributes with Int* causes unnecessary casting – Solution: Use Decimal as attribute for number columns

29 Copyright © 2012, Oracle and/or its affiliates. All rights reserved. Upcoming .NET Sessions Thursday Oct 4 . Hands-on Lab: Building .NET Applications with Oracle – 12:45 PM - 3:15 PM, Marriott Marquis - Salon 10/11

. OTN .NET Developer Center – http://otn.oracle.com/dotnet . Twitter – @OracleDOTNET . YouTube – http://www.youtube.com/user/OracleDOTNETTeam . For more questions – [email protected]

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