FirebirdClient version 6.0, Entity Framework Core 2.x provider, Entity Framework 6 provider

Yep, it’s finally here. The big version, version 6.0, of FirebirdClient and providers for Entity Framework Core and Entity Framework 6. I think this is the biggest release ever. A lot of changes (some breaking). Let’s take it one by one.

FirebirdClient 6.0

Although only about 20 items were completed in this version, some have quite a big impact. Some sweeping also happened. For example item from 2013 – yes, that’s five years – was finally resolved (it took so long because it’s a huge breaking change). You can get overview of all changes from tracker.

Because some changes are (can be) breaking, all these items are marked #breaking in tracker for your convenience. You should check your code before updating. To mention few important:

Support for .NET 4.0 was dropped (DNET-774).

Only Entity Framework 6 is supported and Entity Framework provider is completely moved to separate assembly, using new namespaces (DNET-732).

GUIDs in/from .NET have the same representation as in Firebird (DNET-509).

Entity Framework Core 2.x provider

You can now use Entity Framework Core 2.x with Firebird. The NuGet package is FirebirdSql.EntityFrameworkCore.Firebird . Small tutorial to get you started is here.

Scaffolding and Migrations are not part of this version (mostly to not block the release).

Entity Framework 6 provider

Only Entity Framework 6 is now supported and new namespaces are used ( EntityFramework.Firebird ). Small tutorial to get you started is here.

Documentation

To help you started with usage, I created documents for ADO.NET, Entity Framework Core and Entity Framework 6. At the moment I went with the simplest solution, plain Markdown files in docs folder in the repository, and let’s see where that ends. Feel free to contribute.

Getting the bits

You can get the bits from NuGet FirebirdSql.Data.FirebirdClient, FirebirdSql.EntityFrameworkCore.Firebird, EntityFramework.Firebird.