Are LINQ generated classes POCOs?

Question

Are the classes generated by LINQ (DBML) considered POCOs? If I add static queries to these classes, are they still POCOs?

I imagine it changes once I start doing business things in the LINQ partials. Such as adding other attributes, creating collections and basically making the partials more than DAL classes.

If the LINQ classes are POCOs, what is another example?

Answer 1

I would say not. There is a decent amount of intelligence in a Linq to SQL designer-generated class.

Answer 2

Well, they don't inherit any special base class at least. And most of the code there you can simply remove -- LINQ-to-SQL doesn't need any of it. But note that in doing so, you'll lose out on a lot of enhancements such as more efficient change tracking (no property changed events) and deferred loading for relationships.

More importantly, who cares if someone considers them POCO if they work for what you need? As far as adding your own behaviour onto the data object... that's what objects are for. POCO doesn't mean no behaviour, it just means the objects aren't too "wierd" or with lots of framework-specific code (such as special base class needed, special interfaces, etc.)

Answer 3

The short answer is no. The classes generated by LINQ to SQL contain database persistence logic, which is required by LINQ to SQL in order for it to work properly. POCOs, by definition, do not have such code.