As a member of the ADO.NET Entity Framework team, I couldn't wait to see the day that our v1 product gets into the hands of the developers; I also would like to provide some insight into the product.
One of the main advantages of EF is its flexible mapping layer. For an introduction, check out Mapping 101. When it comes to mapping, the entity framwork designer tool in Visual Studio does a good job in helping you specify a broad range of mapping scenarios. However, the Entity Framework runtime allows a lot more mapping flexibility than the entity designer supports currently. For advanced users, they might need to manually edit the XML mapping file in order to achieve the kind of mapping they want, because they couldn't do this through the designer tool. But it could be difficult for them to troubleshoot if they make any mapping mistake.
That's why I'm starting this mapping advisor series. These articles hopefully can help advanced users do two things:
- Design mapping scenarios beyond those supported by the GUI designer tool.
- Understand the error message better, so that they can rectify or circumvent their mapping mistakes easily.
My plan to achieve this is to first explain in some detail how the mapping layer works under the cover, and then give a few examples. So, here it goes.
Next: The Language of Mapping
