How to: Make Entities Serializable

You can make entities serializable when you generate your code. Entity classes are decorated with the DataContractAttribute attribute, and columns with the DataMemberAttribute attribute.

Developers using Visual Studio can use the Object Relational Designer for this purpose.

If you are using the SQLMetal command-line tool, use the /serialization option with the unidirectional argument. For more information, see SqlMetal.exe (Code Generation Tool).

Example

The following SQLMetal command lines produce files that have serializable entities.

Console

sqlmetal /code:nwserializable.vb /language:vb "c:\northwnd.mdf" /sprocs /functions /pluralize /serialization:unidirectional  

Console

sqlmetal /code:nwserializable.cs /language:csharp "c:\northwnd.mdf" /sprocs /functions /pluralize /serialization:unidirectional  

See also

• Serialization
• Creating the Object Model