Christian Shay - Oracle and .NET

The Oracle Data Access Components (ODAC) 12c Release 3 Beta is now available! This beta introduces numerous new features for Entity Framework and managed ODP.NET.

Entity Framework 6 Code First

ODAC 12c R3 is the first ODP.NET release to certify with Entity Framework (EF) 6 and EF Code First. EF Code First is a popular development model for .NET object-relational mapping. Developers define the application domain model using source code, rather than with a designer or an XML-based configuration file. An EF Code First model's classes are defined in code through Plain Old CLR Objects (POCOs).

This support includes interoperability with the two Entity Framework methods that control the resulting Oracle data type: Data Annotations and Code First Fluent API. Data Annotations permit you to explicitly mark a class property with one or more attributes, whereas the Code First Fluent API permits you to use code rather than attributes to achieve the same goal.

Code First developers can modify and create their database schema as their model changes via EF Code First Migrations. ODP.NET supports EF Code First Migrations through the Visual Studio Package Manager Console commands.

These features are all available in both managed and unmanaged ODP.NET.

New ODP.NET, Managed Driver Features

Several new managed ODP.NET features have been delivered with this beta. XML DB developers can now use all of ODP.NET's XML classes that are supported by ODP.NET, Unmanaged Driver with the exception of the OracleXmlType.IsFragment and OracleCommand.XmlCommandType properties. This makes Unmanaged ODP.NET XML DB application migration to the managed driver a simple process.

ODP.NET, Managed Driver supports the VARCHAR2, NVARCHAR2, and RAW data types up to 32 KB in size. No code changes are required to use the larger data types, (which are a new Oracle Database 12c feature). By storing more data, developers can use these data types more frequently, providing programming flexibility. In addition, SQL Server to Oracle Database application migration is easier with these new data type sizes.

When using array binding to execute multiple DML statements, ODP.NET, Managed Driver can now provide an array that lists the number of rows affected for each input value from the bound array, rather than just the total number of rows affected. To retrieve the row count, ODP.NET can call the OracleCommand.ArrayBindRowsAffected property. You can use this information to better evaluate the DML's efficiency and whether the data changes were correctly applied.

.NET Framework 4.5.2 and Distributed Transactions

The ODP.NET managed and unmanaged beta drivers are certified with new .NET Framework 4.5.2 release. .NET 4.5.2 introduces a new Microsoft Distributed Transaction Coordinator feature that allows ODP.NET, Managed Driver to support distributed transactions without requiring you to deploy Oracle.ManagedDataAccessDTC.dll with your application.

More to Come

Up next, the ODAC team plans a NuGet installable managed and unmanaged ODP.NET. Stay tuned to @OracleDOTNET to learn when it is available. We hope to hear your feedback via the OTN discussion forums.