PLINQO for LINQ to SQL
It's still LINQ to SQL, but better.
PLINQO (Professional LINQ to Objects) is a set of CodeSmith Generator templates that replace and enhance the LINQ to SQL designer in Visual Studio. It opens the LINQ to SQL black box: you control the generated source code, and you get many features that LINQ to SQL doesn't have. PLINQO generates C# or Visual Basic.
The generated code is clean and easy to maintain, and it gives your project a solid foundation. PLINQO takes full advantage of Generator features such as merge strategies, Generator projects and Visual Studio integration, so you can regenerate as your database changes without losing your customizations.
Tip
Looking for another data access technology? See PLINQO for Entity Framework and PLINQO for NHibernate.
What PLINQO adds to LINQ to SQL
- Regenerate safely. Generate the dbml file from your database and update it as the schema changes, keeping your customizations.
- One file per entity, with partial classes for your own code and a metadata class for attributes.
- Business rules that run automatically when you submit changes, plus auditing of every change.
- Data access extras: detach, clone and serialize entities, many-to-many relationships, enums from lookup tables and composable query extensions.
- Performance: caching, future queries, and batch updates, deletes and queries.
See Features for the full list, or take the feature tour.
Get PLINQO
PLINQO isn't installed with CodeSmith Generator. Download it, with sample projects, from GitHub. See Download.
To create your first PLINQO solution, follow Getting started.
Documentation
| Page | What it covers |
|---|---|
| Getting started | Generate a complete solution with the QuickStart template. |
| Features | Everything the templates generate, and why to use them instead of the designer. |
| Feature tour | A guided tour of PLINQO's features, with code samples. |
| Using the templates | Add PLINQO to an existing project, and the properties of each template. |
| Download | Where to get the templates, sample projects and source code. |
API reference
The API reference for the CodeSmith.Data library that PLINQO uses is a compiled help file, CodeSmith.Data.chm, in the templates' Common folder. You can also download it from GitHub.
Note
If Windows blocks the help file's content, right-click the downloaded file, select Properties, then select Unblock.
More resources
- Why PLINQO?: the reasons to choose PLINQO as your ORM.
- PLINQO on the CodeSmith website
- Issue tracker