The same thing can also be done using the
Object Relation Designer, which we are going to see later in this chapter. However
the advantage of using SQLMetal is that it is a command line tool that can be used
in the automated build process. All we have to do is to use the tool and provide the
database name, location and format in which we want the objects. It is a command
line utility that automates the task. To see the different options available with
SQLMetal, type sqlmetal / at the command prompt.
LINQ to SQL
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Chapter 4
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SQLMetal supports two different formats for objects. One is the entity classes in
different languages like Visual Basic or C# and the other is the XML format. Then
functionality involved in SQLMetal is of two steps, explained as follows:
1. Extracting the information format from the database and creating a .dbml
file. This is the intermediate file generated for customization. From this
DBML file, we can generate code and mapping attributes.
2. Generating a code output file.
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