Gentle.NET

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Gentle.NET (or just Gentle) is an object-relational mapping (ORM) solution for the Microsoft .NET platform. It is free, open source software that is distributed under the LGPL. Gentle was developed by Morten Mertner and first released to the public in January 2004. It provides a framework for mapping an object-oriented domain model to a traditional relational database.^{[citation needed]}

1 Features
2 Versions
3 External links
4 Tools

[edit] Features

Gentle supports mapping of plain C# classes to database tables. To achieve this it performs run-time SQL generation using metadata obtained by analyzing the database schema combined with metadata gathered by reflection (a mechanism for run-time type inspection). Classes can be mapped to either a table or view.

In addition to this core functionality, Gentle features a caching subsystem to enhance performance, an extensible validation engine for data validation, full two-way data-binding support, automatic object construction, concurrency control, object uniqing, soft deletion, inheritance mapping, and a facility for creating custom queries.

The goal of the project is to make database persistence as seamless as possible, without imposing any particular design restrictions on the users of the framework.