What's new/changed in LLBLGen Pro Runtime Framework v3.0?

Below you'll find a list of changes, additions and important fixes in the 3.0 release of the LLBLGen Pro Runtime Framework. It's recommended you also browse the Migrating your code section for breaking changes.

Features no longer supported in 3.0

The following features are no longer supported:

• Compact Framework. Starting with v3.0, we only support full versions of the .NET framework
• .NET 1.0 and .NET 1.1. The LLBLGen Pro Runtime Framework v3.0 supports .NET 2.0 and higher, and no longer .NET 1.0 or .NET 1.1. This also means there's no support for VS.NET 2002 and VS.NET 2003 anymore
• Oracle 8i. Oracle has dropped support (publically) for Oracle 8i years ago, and LLBLGen Pro v3.0 also doesn't support Oracle 8i anymore.

New functionality / changes

General

• All DQEs now use the DbProviderFactory system. This requires that the ADO.NET provider used is build against .NET 2.0 or higher. The advantage of this is that you no longer need to reference an ADO.NET provider assembly nor do you have to use assembly redirects if you use a newer version of the ADO.NET provider than the one we used to build the runtime libraries. Firebird / PostgreSql users: please see the notes on the Compiling your Code page.
• TypedViews can now also be mapped on stored procedure resultsets and Tables. Multiple resultset returning stored procedures are supported. See Adapter or SelfServicing for details.
• .NET 4.0 / VS.NET 2010 support. Choosing .NET 4.0 as target platform automatically creates vs.net 2010 project files.
• Support for multiple entity classes with a relationship mapped onto the same target. This is called 'entity splitting' where a new entity is mapped onto the same target and has optional (nullable) fields and a 1:1 relationship between its PK and the PK of an other entity mapped onto the same target. Useful when large fields have to be in a separate entity as they're optional.
• Native enum support. It's no longer necessary to use a type converter to have enum fields, as long as the target field is of a type convertable to integer.
• Multi-catalog support for MySQL and Sybase ASE. You can now use multiple catalogs in MySQL and Sybase ASE, you can also use catalog name overwriting using these databases.
• Stored procedure support for MySQL v5.x+. It's now possible to use stored procedures in MySQL v5.x
• Oracle specific: NUMBER fields without precision/scale are now handled properly. These fields are now seen as FLOAT(126) fields and properly store floating point data without rounding issues. The .NET type is still decimal.

Runtime Libraries

Changed

• DataSource controls now contain a property TotalRowCount. This property is set after a get dbcount query is executed in a paging query situation.
• EntityView and EntityView2 now have a method called Refresh. This method reapplies filter/sorter on the view to refresh its contents.
• The Context class now has a lot of extensibility points to customize Context usage. This should make using the Context class more easier.
• ORMEntityOutOfSyncException and ORMEntityIsDeletedException now embed the entity which triggered the exception. Please see the LLBLGen Pro Runtime Framework reference manual for details.
• EntityCollection[index] = entity; where entity was already at that index is now a no-op. The verification uses an instance comparison, not a value comparison.
• Entity classes now have a protected virtual method called OnSetRelatedEntityProperty. This method can be used to extend the prefetch path system.

Templates

Changed

• Selfservicing: DbUtils has been removed. A new class, CommonDaoBase which is placed between the Dao classes and the DaoBase class now contains the DbUtils properties / methods. See CommonDaoBase Functionality.