LINQ to SQL in Silverlight 3


Introduction

In this article we would see how can we use Linq to Sql ORM in Silverlight 3 Application for interactinig with SQL Server Database.

Creating Silverlight Project

Fire up Visual Studio 2008 and create a new Silverlight 3 Project. Name it as LINQ2SQLSL3.

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Now that you have created the Silverlight 3 Application, we would add a LINQ to SQL file that is *.dbml .

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For your information, I have created a Database named "EmployeeDB" with a table "EMP_BASIC_INFO" with the following details.

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Now, connect to the SQL Server from Server Explorer as shown in below figure.

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Drag and Drop the above above displayed table to the Object Relational Designer for Linq to SQL.

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Now we would change the above names to be user friendly.

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To interact with LINQ to SQL we need to have a service that client can call at any time.

Add Silverlight enabled WCF Service to the Web Project.

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In the Service.svc.cs add methods as per your requirement.

I have written two methods such as:

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And

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After writing the service build the project and get this service's reference in Silverlight 3 Project as shown in below figure.

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After you add the service it would create the ServiceReferences.ClientConfig file.

Now it's time to design our Silverlight UI in Blend, I have gone for a simple approach, where simple buttons and textbox would help us getting the result which would be displayed in DataGrid.

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The following XAML is for your reference:

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Now we would write client side code to call the service and display the result.

Following code is for Show All Button Click and displaying the result.

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Following code is for Show the text typed in txtSearch and based on that the result would be displayed.

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I guess that's it. Now we can test our application.

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When some text is typed and Search Button is clicked all the Employee whose name starts with the given text would be displayed.

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Hope this article helps.


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