Question

I made a little WPF application with a SQL CE database.

I built the following code with LINQ to get data out of the database, which was surprisingly easy. So I thought ‘this must be LINQ-to-SQL’.

Then I did ‘add item’ and added a ‘LINQ-to-SQL classes’ .dbml file, dragged my table onto the Object Relational Designer but it said, ‘The selected object uses an unsupported data provider.’

So then I questioned whether or not the following code actually is LINQ-to-SQL, since it indeed allows me to access data from my SQL CE database file, yet officially ‘LINQ-to-SQL’ seems to be unsupported for SQL CE.

So is the following ‘LINQ-to-SQL’ or not?

using System.Linq; using System.Data.Linq; using System.Data.Linq.Mapping; using System.Windows;  namespace TestLinq22 {     public partial class Window1 : Window     {         public Window1()         {             InitializeComponent();              MainDB db = new MainDB(@'Data Source=App_Data\Main.sdf');             var customers = from c in db.Customers                             select new {c.FirstName, c.LastName};             TheListBox.ItemsSource = customers;         }     }      [Database(Name = 'MainDB')]     public class MainDB : DataContext     {         public MainDB(string connection) : base(connection) { }         public Table<Customers> Customers;     }      [Table(Name = 'Customers')]     public class Customers     {         [Column(DbType = 'varchar(100)')]         public string FirstName;          [Column(DbType = 'varchar(100)')]         public string LastName;     }  } 

Answer 1

This msdn article notes that while sdf is supported by the LINQ to SQL runtime, it is not supported by the designer.

To Quote:

• The LINQ to SQL runtime and the SQLMetal command-line tool support SQL Server Compact 3.5.
• The Object Relational Designer does not support SQL Server Compact 3.5.