linq2db.LINQPad 6.5.0

LINQ to DB LINQPad Driver

This nuget package is a driver for LINQPad 8 and newer, on Windows and macOS (LINQPad 9 recommended). LINQPad 5 is supported by the .lpx plugin published with each release. Support for older LINQPad versions is available in older driver versions.

Following databases supported:

• ClickHouse: using Binary, HTTP and MySQL interfaces
• DB2 (LUW, z/OS, iSeries): 64-bit LINQPad only — the LINQPad 5 .lpx also supports 32-bit
• DB2 iSeries: check release notes to see which version supports this database
• DuckDB
• Firebird
• Informix: 64-bit LINQPad only — the LINQPad 5 .lpx also supports 32-bit
• Microsoft Access: both OLE DB and ODBC drivers (Windows only)
• Microsoft SQL Server 2005+ (including Microsoft SQL Azure)
• Microsoft SQL Server Compact (SQL CE) (Windows only)
• MariaDB
• MySql
• Oracle
• PostgreSQL
• SAP HANA (client software must be installed, supports both Native and ODBC providers)
• SAP/Sybase ASE
• SQLite
• YDB

Installation

• Click "Add connection" in LINQPad.
• In the "Choose Data Context" dialog, press the "View more drivers..." button.
• In the "LINQPad NuGet Manager" dialog, find LINQ To DB driver in list of drivers and click the "Install" button.
• Close "LINQPad NuGet Manager" dialog
• In the "Choose Data Context" dialog, select the "LINQ to DB" driver and click the "Next" button.
• In the "LINQ to DB connection" dialog, supply your connection information.
• You're done.

Database clients

This nuget package doesn't bundle database client libraries. LINQPad downloads the client of a database when a connection to it is first used, so using a database type for the first time needs an internet connection. A static data context selects its provider itself, so the driver cannot detect which client it needs: such a connection downloads all of them unless you pick its database in the "Database" field of the connection dialog. Note that a context assembly which references a client library must be able to load it from its own folder, because the connection dialog inspects that assembly before any client has been downloaded. A dotnet publish folder has the client next to the assembly, and so does the build output of an application referencing it; the build output of a class library does not, because the .NET SDK doesn't copy NuGet dependencies there unless the project sets CopyLocalLockFileAssemblies to true. If the client cannot be loaded, the context classes that don't need it are still listed and the rest is reported in the log; the "Context" field is editable so the class name can be typed in either case.

The LINQPad 5 .lpx plugin is unaffected by any of this — it ships every client in the bundle.

Licensing

The MIT license this package declares covers LINQ to DB's own code. The nuget package itself bundles no third-party binary — the database clients above arrive as ordinary NuGet dependencies under their own licenses.

The LINQPad 5 .lpx plugin is different: it bundles every client, so it redistributes third-party software directly. Its THIRD-PARTY-NOTICES.txt, inside the plugin archive, lists every bundled component and reproduces its terms.

macOS

Databases that need Windows-only components — Microsoft Access and SQL Server Compact — are not offered on macOS. Everything else uses the macOS build of its client, including IBM DB2 and Informix. SQL Server spatial values (geometry, geography, hierarchyid) are handled by the managed dotMorten.Microsoft.SqlServer.Types implementation, as Microsoft's package ships its native spatial library for Windows only.

Troubleshooting

Driver errors are written to linq2db.LINQPad.log, in the Logs.LINQPad<version> folder of LINQPad's application data directory:

• Windows: %localappdata%\LINQPad
• macOS: ~/Library/Application Support/LINQPad

On macOS, errors raised outside of the connection dialog go to that log only, without a message box: LINQPad renders a driver's dialogs through Avalonia XPF there, and XPF is available to a driver just while its own dialog is open, so anything reported from elsewhere has nowhere to draw. On Windows they are shown in a message box as well.

Failures the driver recovers from go to the log on either system, without a message box. Reading the age of a connection's schema is one: LINQPad asks for it before it has downloaded that connection's database client, so it cannot be answered yet, and the schema is built and queried normally straight afterwards.