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Asked: 2026-05-11T03:18:08+00:00

I’d like to use Visual Studio 2008 IDE for editing my local database schema

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I’d like to use Visual Studio 2008 IDE for editing my local database schema for a SQL Server Compact 3.5 database. However, everything in the documentation and in the UI seems to make an assumption that the application/assembly only wants to use a single database and never wishes to create new ones based on the existing schema.

I’d like to be able to edit the DB schema using visual tools and then to have a mechanism for creating new database files based on the edited schema. This way each document that my application creates would be stored in their own separate database files (.sdf). Furthermore, for the purpose of unit testing, I’d like to be able to create empty temporary .sdf files in order to run my unit tests on an empty database.

The only way I know how to create new empty databases using an existing schema is just to copy my master .sdf file to a new file.

What would be the recommended way to create new .sdf files using C# code? I.e., how to implement MyModel.Create(‘foo.sdf’) so that it creates .sdf files using the schema I’ve created in Visual Studio.

EDIT: After a long investigation, I ended up ditching VS2008 local database .sdf editor completely and started creating new .sdf files by using LINQ-to-SQL. I now just specify a bunch of C# classes, annotate them to work with LINQ-to-SQL and create new database files by calling my DataContext’s CreateDatabase method. MSDN has a good document on it: How to: Dynamically Create a Database (LINQ to SQL)

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  1. Create a ‘model.sdf’ database, that contains the schema, and possibly needed initial data. If you want to create a new database, you create a copy from this model.

    You could also create the Sql-DDL from an existing database (alternative link), then create an empty database and execute this SQL on it. This will be a lot slower.

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