Entity Framework 6: Preview Alpha 2 released recently... few key features:
- Async language support is now available for queries and updates when running on .NET 4.5.
- Custom conventions now provide the ability to override the default conventions that Code First uses for mapping types, properties, etc. to your database.
- Multi-tenant migrations allow the same database to be used by multiple contexts with full Code First Migrations support for independently evolving the model backing each context.
- Using Enumerable.Contains in a LINQ query is now handled much more efficiently by EF and the SQL Server provider resulting greatly improved performance.
- All features of EF6 (except async) are available on both .NET 4 and .NET 4.5. This includes support for enums and spatial types and the performance improvements that were previously only available when using .NET 4.5.
- Start-up time for many large models has been dramatically improved thanks to improved view generation performance.
Entity Framework 6 is the first open source release of Entity Framework being developed in
CodePlex. The preview release of EF6
is also available on NuGet, and contains some really great features for you to try.
Entity Framework 5 release is available on NuGet and has following key features:
- Enum support allows you to have enum properties in your entity classes. This new feature is available for Model, Database and Code First.
- Table-valued functions in your database can now be used with Database First.
- Spatial data types can now be exposed in your model using the DbGeography and DbGeometry types. Spatial data is supported in Model, Database and Code First.
The following new features are also available in the Entity Model Designer in Visual Studio 2012:
- Multiple-diagrams per model allows you to have several diagrams that visualize subsections of your overall model.
- Batch import of stored procedures allows multiple stored procedures to be added to the model during model creation.
- DJ
