SQL Server

SQL Server 2008

Spatial Data Types

To enable spatial data types at runtime, choose the SqlServer2008 or SqlServer2012 DataProvider in your LightSpeedContext configuration. If you choose this provider, you must distribute Microsoft.SqlServer.Types.dll with you application, even if you do not use the spatial data types.

In order to use spatial functions in LINQ queries, you will need to map the appropriate SqlGeography and SqlGeometry methods to the equivalent SQL Server geography and geometry member functions.  For information about doing this, see ‘Mapping Member Functions’ in the chapter Advanced Querying Techniques.

Time Data Type

LightSpeed 5 now has direct support for time data type translation. This is both in the core and in the designer.

Stored Procedures

Table value parameters can be used in SQL Server 2008 stored procedures.

HierarchyId

HierarchyId is supported as data type when using the SQL Server 2008 or SQL Server 2012 providers.

SQL Server 2012

If you are using SQL Server 2012, you must be using Visual Studio 2010 or Visual Studio 2012 to connect using the Server Explorer.

This provider supports using the new Sequence identity type added in SQL Server 2012.

SQL Server 2000 Limitations

LightSpeed provides only limited support for SQL Server 2000. In particular paging operations (including LINQ operations such as Skip that require paging) are not supported.

SQL Server 2000 support will be deprecated in a future version of LightSpeed.

SQL Server 2000 Designer Support

The LightSpeed designer defaults to using SQL Server 2005 APIs for extracting the database schema. Therefore, if you drag tables from SQL Server 2000 onto the designer, you will get an error. To work around this, click on the model background and set Database Provider to SqlServer2000 before dragging the tables on.

If you are using Visual Studio 2010, the only way to connect to SQL Server 2000 through Server Explorer is to use the OLE DB provider.  You can still drag tables from an OLE DB connection onto the designer.  This is a special workaround for the VS2010 SQL Server 2000 issue: you cannot drag tables from OLE DB for any other database.  Note that at runtime you must still use the normal SqlConnection connection string format, not the OLE DB connection string format.

SQL Server 2000 support will be deprecated in a future version of LightSpeed.