EF4 equivalent of NHibernate IUserType

Question

I want to map a model property of type TimeZoneInfo to a column in the database. In NHib, I just made an IUserType "TimeZoneInfoString" that converted back and forth and then used a typedef. How can I do this type of work using Entity Framework 4.0?

Answer 1

Entity framework doesn't have equivalent to NHibernate's user types. You must create separate property in your entity for it and map only the string property. Somethink like:

public partial class MyEntity
{
    public TimeZoneInfo TimeZone
    {
        get
        {
            return Parse(TimeZoneInfoString);
        }
        set
        {
            TimeZoneInfoString = value.ToString();
        }
    }
}

Where this class is your partial part to autogenerated entity. TimeZoneInfoString is property mapped in your entity and Parse and ToString contains your conversion logic.