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Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools

Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools is an add-in for Visual Studio that adds functionality to the Linq-to-SQL / DBML diagram designer, and to the ADO.NET Entity Framework designer in Visual Studio 2008, 2010, 2012, and 2013.

Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools integrates with Visual Studio and adds useful new functionality to the built-in designers for Linq-to-SQL and Entity Framework in Visual Studio. Among the features added to Visual Studio by the add-in are: synchronize your Linq-to-SQL models with the underlying database and any database schema changes, compare and synchronize database, SSDL, and CSDL model in Entity Framework 4 models (VS2010/VS2012/VS2013), mass-rename Linq-to-SQL and Entity Framework generated entity classes and their members to use .net naming conventions, generate documentation comments for L2S and EF entity classes from the database, generate SQL-DDL scripts from Linq-to-SQL and Entity Framework models.

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Features for Linq-to-SQLFeatures for Entity FrameworkDownloadHelp and SupportTestimonials, Reviews, and Comments

Features for Linq-to-SQL

Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools adds a new menu to Visual Studio's menu bar

Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools adds a new DBML/EDMX Tools menu to Visual Studio's menu bar

...and a toolbar providing quick and easy access to the add-in features

Update Linq-to-SQL diagram from database automatically updates Linq-to-SQL designer diagrams
and generated classes with database changes:

New Tables/Views -> creates new classes
Dropped Tables/Views -> removes corresponding classes
New Columns -> adds new properties
Dropped Columns -> removes corresponding properties
Columns with changed nullability -> updates member properties accordingly
Columns with data type changes -> updates member properties accordingly
New Foreign Keys -> adds associations and navigation properties
Dropped Foreign Keys -> removes corresponding associations and navigation properties
Changed Primary Keys -> updates member properties accordingly
New stored procedures or user defined functions -> adds member methods to the datacontext class
Dropped stored procedures or user defined functions -> removes member methods from the datacontext class
Changed signature (parameters or return value/return type) from stored procedures and UDFs -> updates the signature accordingly in the datacontext

Exclusion lists for tables, columns, foreign keys, types/classes, members/properties and associations/navigation
properties allows flexible rules for what to sync and what to not sync.
Customizable rules for auto-generated properties allow columns with default constraints such as NewID,
NewSequentialID, GetDate, or custom default constraints
to be treated as auto-generated.

Compare Linq-to-SQL diagram with database detects changes and differences between
the Linq-to-SQL designer (DBML) and the database and outputs a list of the changes;

New Tables
Dropped Tables
New Columns
Dropped Columns
Columns with changed nullability
Columns with data type changes
New Foreign Keys
Dropped Foreign Keys
Changed Primary Keys
New stored procedures or user defined functions
Dropped stored procedures or user defined functions
Modified stored procedures or user defined functions

The Update/Compare options dialog gives the user control over what kinds of database changes to take into account in the update and compare functions, and customization of many of the update/compare rules.

Standardize Linq-to-SQL class and member names mass updates names of entities and members in Linq-to-SQL designer diagrams and generated classes:

Remove/add prefixes/suffixes, e.g. remove leading tbl_, int_, str_
Use TitleCaseNames for classes and properties if the database names are all lowercase
Remove underscores_in_names
Control pluralization / singularization
Use regular expressions in addition to built-in naming rules
Plug in custom pluralization / singularization or custom name rule code

The renaming options dialog gives the user control over what naming rules to use when mass-updating class- and property names.

Generate SQL-DDL scripts with model <-> db differences compares the Linq-to-SQL model with the underlying database and generates SQL-DDL scripts corresponding to any differences detected; new/dropped tables, new/dropped columns, primary key changes, new/dropped foreign keys/associations.

Update Linq-to-SQL documentation from database retrieves free-text table and column descriptions, and index definitions from the database and updates the xml documentation and description attributes for Linq-to-SQL generated entity classes and member properties with the same information for inline documentation in Visual Studio's code editor.

Entity and member documentation is displayed by Visual Studio's code editor

After using the documentation add-in on a Linq-to-SQL designer, the generated documentation is displayed in tooltips in the Visual Studio code editor.

Generate Required/Optional interfaces adds member properties to all entity classes, providing quick and easy access to required (non-nullable) vs optional (nullable) members.

The _opt member property provides access to the optional members of an entity.

The _req member property provides access to the required members of an entity.

After using the optional/required interface generation add-in feature on a Linq-to-SQL designer, all entity classes have new _opt/_req properties providing access to optional and required members respectively.

Diagram layout views is a dropdown on the DBML Tools toolbar that allow a Linq-to-SQL model to have more than one diagram layout. New layouts are added using the add view button (

The DBML Diagram View dropdown makes it easy to switch layout views in the Linq-to-SQL designer.

SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008 (any edition) is required for the Linq-to-SQL features.

Features for ADO.NET Entity Framework

Huagati EDMX Tools adds a DBML/EDMX Tools dropdown menu to Visual Studio's menu bar

Huagati DBML/EDMX Tools adds a new dropdown menu to Visual Studio's menu bar

The Model Comparer* for Entity Framework 4 compares the database, the SSDL (storage) layer of the model, and CSDL (conceptual) layer of the model and presents differences between the database and model layers in easy-to-overview ways. It allows differences to be synchronized across the layers selectively, updating only the portions of the model selected by the user while leaving other portions of the model untouched and intact.

The Model Comparer also detects and can correct SSDL <=> CSDL differences that are caused by changes done in the VS2010/VS2012/VS2013 EF designer or by Visual Studio's built-in wizards, e.g. changes in data type/maxlength/precision & scale/store generated pattern/default value etc are now a breeze to detect and bring in sync in the other layers.

The Model Comparer for EFv4 shows differences between the database, SSDL, and CSDL layers and allows individual differences to be synchronized or left in place.

The Model Comparer's report view shows database <=> SSDL <=> CSDL differences in report form. Reports can be printed or saved as HTML files.

The Model Comparer allows certain types of differences to be included or excluded in the comparison, and allow database default constraints to be mapped against Entity Framework's StoreGeneratedPattern values.

For model-first scenarios, the Model Comparer support generating mappings and tables for all three inheritance types supported by Entity Framework 4; TPT, TPH, and TPC. It can also make some common transformations on entity and member names when generating storage layer entities from the conceptual model.

Model first options in the Model Comparer's settings dialog.

The Model Comparer can also infer foreign key constraints if some or all foreign keys are missing in the database. Inferred foreign key constraints can be added to the model as entity-associations without having to be added to the database, allowing navigation properties between entities even if some or all foreign keys are missing.

The Model Comparer's foreign key constraint inference options.

EDMX file wrapper library: The add-in uses a sophisticated wrapper library, HuagatiEDMXTools, that puts an object model on top of the EDMX, giving easy programmatic access to parsing, creating, modifying and updating EDMX files. This library can be used by licensed users of the add-in for homegrown tools built on top of the EDMX files.

Standardize ADO.NET Entity Data Model class and member names renames ADO.NET Entity Framework designer diagrams and generated classes:

Remove/add prefixes/suffixes, e.g. remove leading tbl_, int_, str_
Use TitleCaseNames for classes and properties if the database names are all lowercase
Remove underscores_in_names
Control pluralization/singularization
Use regular expressions in addition to built-in naming rules
Plug in custom pluralization / singularization or custom name rule code

The renaming options dialog gives the user control over what naming rules to use when mass-updating class- and property names.

Generate complex types* can generate complex types, grouping commonly occuring entity members together in types reused across all entities sharing the same members.

The Model Comparer allows certain types of differences to be included or excluded in the comparison, and allow database default constraints to be mapped against Entity Framework's StoreGeneratedPattern values.

Update ADO.NET Entity Data Model documentation from database retrieves free-text table and column descriptions, and index definitions from the database and updates the xml documentation fields in the EDMX designer with the descriptions.

SQL Server 2000, 2005 or 2008 (any edition) is required for the update documentation feature.

Cleanup SSDL/MSL/CSDL** detects unmapped entityset/entitytype definitions in the SSDL and CSDL portion of EDMX files and presents a summary of those inconcistencies along with options for removing unmapped entitysets/types and associations/foreign keys linked to them, or to recreate them in the opposite layer of the EDMX file (CSDL / SSDL), and to create new mappings.

The cleanup dialog will list unmapped entitysets/types in the conceptual (CSDL) layer, and storage (SSDL) layer of the EDMX file and has options for removing or re-creating corresponding entity sets/types in the layer where it is missing.

Generate DDL (New Database)** generates SQL-DDL for generating a new database from the SSDL (storage) portion of an EDMX file, including tables, primary keys, foreign keys, and indexes corresponding to foreign keys.

Generate Required/Optional interfaces adds member properties to all entity classes, providing quick and easy access to required (non-nullable) vs optional (nullable) members.

After using the optional/required interface generation add-in feature on an Entity Framework model, all entity classes have new _opt/_req properties providing access to optional and required members respectively.

* = The 'Model Comparer' and 'Complex Type Generator' are available for EFv4 models under Visual Studio 2010, 2012, and 2013.
** = The 'Cleanup SSDL/MSL/CSDL' and 'Generate DDL' options has been superseded by the Model Comparer under Visual Studio 2010 and 2012, but are available under both VS2008 and VS2010 for backwards compatibility.