Chapter 11. Using the ASP.NET EntityDataSource Control
With the Entity Framework you can build both Rapid Application
Development (RAD) applications and highly architected applications. On the
RAD end, the ASP.NET EntityDataSource
control enables quick
declarative data binding that you can use in a number of
scenarios.
In this chapter, you will build two ASP.NET web applications using
entities that make use of the EntityDataSource
control. The first application
will introduce you to the EntityDataSource
, and the second will add some
more complexity, featuring hierarchical data as well as greater
interaction between the controls. After you build the examples, the
chapter will bring you on a tour of some of the more interesting features
of the EntityDataSource
control.
The EntityDataSource
control
allows you to define a data source for binding your data to controls in
the UI, using markup syntax. It is related to the other ASP.NET DataSource
controls, such
as SqlDataSource
and LinqDataSource
.
Using entities in web applications can be challenging because the
ObjectContext
does not survive
postbacks and therefore cannot do its job of keeping track of changes to
your entities. The EntityDataSource
control helps you to resolve many of the challenges in scenarios where you
do not need to use a business or data access layer. Later in the book,
after you have learned about the Entity Framework in more detail, you will
learn about building layered ASP.NET applications.
This chapter will give ...
Get Programming Entity Framework now with the O’Reilly learning platform.
O’Reilly members experience books, live events, courses curated by job role, and more from O’Reilly and nearly 200 top publishers.