Adding navigation properties

Hi,

Are there any plans to support adding navigation properties through the object mapper like in classic? One database we are currently working against does not have relationships setup in the database, and we cannot add them due to legacy applications currently in use. I realize you can do it with the EF designer but frankly it is horrible to work with!

Thanks,

Mark

I started creating a new model and I'm having problems with renaming navigation properties in the object model. I'll be working with if for a while, changing the names of the Navigation properties and the Association names, periodically saving it. Eventually, I get a nondescript error when saving. I end up having to close the object mapper without saving the changes. However, the model is in an invalid state. The .Net entity designer won't display the objects and shows an error:

Originally posted by pucsoftware The object mapper automatically names them: LU_DEVICE_CODE LU_DEVICE_CODE1 LU_DEVICE_CODE2 LU_DEVICE_CODE3   Which, to me, makes it a little confusing since the Navigations are not corresponding to the original fields:   DEVICE_CODE1 -> LU_DEVICE_CODE    ( this one defaults to no number ) DEVICE_CODE2 -> LU_DEVICE_CODE1 DEVICE_CODE3 -> LU_DEVICE_CODE2 DEVICE_CODE4 -> LU_DEVICE_CODE3   So, I was renaming them to be:   DEVICE_CODE1 -> LuDeviceCode1 DEVICE_CODE2 -> LuDeviceCode2 DEVICE_CODE3 -> LuDeviceCode3 DEVICE_CODE4 -> LuDeviceCode4

It's the ADO.NET Entity Data Model designer, not the DevForce Object Mapper, that makes the initial name assignments. It uses the name of the type on the other end of the association (LU_DEVICE_CODE) rather than the name of the foreign key; and that's generally a good thing, since foreign keys often have names that aren't appropriate for an entity (like OrderId, etc.).   If you have more than one navigation property that returns the same type, the EF code generator then just starts appending integer suffixes, leaving it up to you to adjust the names to something that's meaningful to you.

But you should be able to do it!

I went through all this again, slowly, and got a completed entity model. This time I did one table at a time, first doing the navigation properties, then the Associations, saving after each changes, and didn't run into any problems. Before I was jumping around changing several tables, navigation and associations, all at the same time before saving. I probably created some type of conflict without realizing it. If I can reproduce this some time in the future I'll send you the corrupted model. Thanks for your efforts.