Entity Framework in Visual Studio 2008 missing Add method

Question

I am trying to use Entity Framework in Visual Studio 2008 (.NET 3.5).

I can find it in the Add New Item and it does all it should do(created classes etc.)

But when I try to add a new entity into the database like:

myModel.students.Add(newStudent);

I cannot find Add() method under students object at all!

Is that because I haven't referenced to some nedded dlls? Or Entity Framework doesn't support Add method in VS2008(.NET 3.5)

To me, it's so weird. I never met this situation before and don't think it should happen.

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Update 1:

I also tried to use LINQ2SQL, but still there are no Add, or AddObject/AddEntity methods. There are no anything like AddXXXX() methods.

What happened?

Answer 1

Use the ObjectContext instead and call AddToStudentSet(newStudent).

myModel.AddTostudentSet(newStudent);

You are using an old version of Entity Framework. Back then Entity Framework came bundle with System.Data and wasn't a stand alone library. Instead of having Add/AddObject methods on the DbSet/EntitySet the tool generated add methods directly on the ObjectContext and named them according to the name of the entity.

So an entity called Student would result in a method called AddToStudentSet

Newer versions of EF dropped this approach and instead generate these methods directly on the DbSet.