Entity Framework vs Linq to Entities vs Linq to SQL

Question

Hi

I read a lot articles about how to work with database in WPF .Net 4 application. As I understood, the main two technologies are:

• Linq to SQL (L2S)
• Entity Framework (EF)

but sometimes I also can see mention of Linq to Entities (L2E) technology, but can't find clear explanation what difference between EF and L2E.

So, my question is: Does there is any difference between Entity Framework and Linq to Entities technologies? Or this is synonyms for one technology?

Thanks.

Answer 1

There are two ways of writing queries with Entity Framework:

• Linq to Entities ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb386964.aspx )
• Entity SQL ( http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb387145.aspx )

L2E is not a separate technology, but rather a part of EF.

Have a look at this article for a comparison: http://thedatafarm.com/blog/data-access/choosing-linq-to-entities-vs-entity-sql-vs-entityclient/