Is there a way to create automatically create properties from a SQL Server database?

Question

Using Visual Studio .NET 2008 or 2005, is there a way to automatically generate properties for each column in an SQL Server database table?

I am assuming other code-generation software exists that will do this. I know with Visio I can connect to my database and it will generate diagrams by table, this would be similar to that.

Answer 1

Check out MyGeneration

Answer 2

Linq2SQL in .NET 3.5 (VS2008) is what you're looking for.

Add a Linq2SQL DBML File to your solution/project

Create a connection to the Database with SErver Explorer

Drag and drop Tables/views/Sprocs

Code Generation is done for you... (and its damn cool :) )

Answer 3

mygeneration is really very cool and also lets you create your own templates giving you lot ore power to generate the "usual" classes for data access, entity classes, etc.

Answer 4

CodeSmith:

<%-- 
Name: Database Table Properties
Authors: Paul Welter , Yordan Georgiev
Description: Create a list of properties from a database table with a region for each prop
--%>
<%@ CodeTemplate Language="C#" TargetLanguage="C#" Debug="False" Description="Create a list of properties from database table." %>
<%@ Property Name="SourceTable" Type="SchemaExplorer.TableSchema" Category="Context" Description="Table that the object is based on." %>
<%@ Map Name="CSharpAlias" Src="System-CSharpAlias" Description="System to C# Type Map" %>
<%@ Assembly Name="SchemaExplorer" %>
<%@ Import Namespace="SchemaExplorer" %>

<% foreach (ColumnSchema column in this.SourceTable.Columns) {  %>

#region <%= StringUtil.ToPascalCase(column.Name) %>
private <%= CSharpAlias[column.SystemType.FullName] %> _<%= StringUtil.ToPascalCase(column.Name) %>;

public <%= CSharpAlias[column.SystemType.FullName] %> <%= StringUtil.ToPascalCase(column.Name) %>
{
 get { return _<%= StringUtil.ToPascalCase(column.Name) %>; }
 set { _<%= StringUtil.ToPascalCase(column.Name) %> = value; }
}
#endregion <%= StringUtil.ToPascalCase(column.Name) %>
<% } %>

Answer 5

SubSonic / Rob Connery has blogged about using T4 as a tool for generating a Repository. T4 is in the VS 2005 SDK and native to VS 2008.

Answer 6

The Visual Studio DataSet designer can also accomplish this for you. It generates classes that wrap around your database objects quite easily. Just add a new DataSet to your application.