Many to many relationship

Given this diagram:

Linq to SQL

Models are generated in singular. A table with Persons, gets represented as a class “Person”.

The Many to Many table PersonContactInfo, gets also generated as a Class. Also, the ContactInfo class, has a ContactInfo1 property, (apparently a class and a property cant have the same name?).

Accessing the list from code looks something like this:

LTSModelDataContext lts = new LTSModelDataContext();
List<Person> listPersons = lts.Persons.ToList();

Accessing the contact information for a person would look like this:

Person p = new Person();
var a = p.PersonContactInfos[0].ContactInfo.ContactInfo1;

Linq to Entities:

Models names are generated as they are in the DB, so table Persons, gets created as a class Persons.

The model doesn’t create the PersonContactInfo table it adds a Navigation Property (a more OOP approach, rather than a Relational approach).

Accessing the list from code looks something like this:

LTEEntities lte = new LTEEntities();
List <Persons> listPersons = lte.Persons.ToList();

Accessing the contact information for a person would look like this:

Persons p = new Persons();
var a = p.ContactInfos.First().ContactInfo;

Conclusions

Linq to SQL made a more comprehensive set of models from the DB, realizing the table names are plural and that a Class is singular is very neat. But the addition of the PersonContactInfo table to the model and its use to access the contact information for a person seems too much.

Linq to Entities, created a “perfect” model from the DB (prefect OOP Model), and accessing the contact information for a Person is more intuitive, but unfortunately the generation of names is not as perfect as Linq to SQL.

Next, inserting, updating and deleting…