Oracle ADO.NET Entity Framework Beta - Some Restrictions

So far we have been delighted with the reaction we have seen with our beta Oracle support for the ADO.NET Entity Framework. We are diligently working on addressing the excellent feedback, so keep the questions and comments coming! Send all comments & questions to entitybeta@datadirect.com

In the meantime, we have received a few questions on our current support and possible restrictions of our current beta many of which we are already working on to resolve.

• Stored Procedures and Functions in packages are currently not visible to the ADO.NET Entity Data Model. If you attempt to run ‘edmgen /mode:FullGeneration’ you’ll likely run into some issues.

• The OracleEntity provider currently plans to implicitly deal with RefCursor data types (i.e. we set operate under the assumption that Ref Cursor Mode=Implicit) and some aspects of this implicit handling are not currently available.

• No current support for the APPLY clause

• No current support for certain statements with LEFT OUT JOIN clauses

• No current support UNIONing columns with different character sets.

Look for details, including possible updates to the above list and other changes which I’ll write up in a future blog posting. Otherwise, keep excellent comments, questions and encouragement headed our way.