Mapping a user defined type to a varbinary column

Hi,
now that I've learned how to specify an enum type for an entity property, I'd like to take this approach a step further.

Is it possible to map a user defined type to a varbinary column? Do I have to implement the IConvertible interface or is a serializable class sufficient?

Thx
Remo

That isn't currently possible, but it's an interesting idea and I've logged a feature request for it.

In the meantime, you can work around this by creating a wrapper property in the partial class:

partial class Person {
  public Bitmap PhotoBitmap {
    get { return new Bitmap(Photo); }  // ignoring caching etc.
    set { Photo = /* serialise new value */; }
  }
}

In fact because LightSpeed operates on fields not properties, you can even get rid of the automatic PhotoBytes wrapper property (set Generation = FieldOnly in the designer) and write your own more friendly wrapper property.  In this case you must use the Entity.Set method to set the field:

partial class Person {
  public Bitmap Photo {
    get { return new Bitmap(_photo); }  // ditto
    set { byte[] bytes = /* serialise new value */; Set(ref _photo, bytes, "Photo"); }
  }
}