Saving Abstract and Sub classes to database
- by bretddog
Hi,
I have an abstract class "StrategyBase", and a set of sub classes, StrategyA/B/C etc. The sub classes use some of the properties of the base class, and have some individual properties. My question is how to save this to a database.
I'm currently using SqlCE, and Linq-To-Sql by creating entity classes automatically with SqlMetal.exe. I've seen there are three solutions shown in this question, but I'm not able to see how these solutions will work or not with SqlMetal/entity classes. Though it seems to me the "concrete table inheritance" would probably work without any manual modifying. What about the other two, would they be problematic?
For "Single Table Inheritance" wouldn't all classes get all variables, even though they don't need them? And for the "Class table inheritance" solution I can't really see at all how that will map into the entity-classes for a useful purpose. I may note that I extend these partial entity classes for making the classes of my business objects.
I may also consider moving to EntityFramework instead of SqlMetal/Linq2Sql, so would be nice also to know if that makes any difference to what schema is easy to implement.
One likely important thing to note is that I will constantly be develop new strategies, which makes me have to modify the program code, and probably the database shcema; when adding a new strategy.
Sorry the question is a bit "all over the place", but hopefully it's some clear advantages/disadvantages here that you may be able to advice. ?
Cheers!
