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XAF: Cross-Platform .NET App UI & Web API
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V24.2
.NET 8.0+
XAF: Cross-Platform .NET App UI & Web API
.NET Support and Migration
Getting Started
Installation, Upgrade, Version History
Backend Web API Service
UI Shell and Base Infrastructure
Storage, ORM, and Business Model Design
Why We Recommend EF Core over XPO for New Development
Business Model Design with Entity Framework Core
Business Model Design with XPO
Non-Persistent Objects
The Importance of Property Change Notifications
Built-in Business Classes & Interfaces
Ways to Add a Business Class
Data Types of Business Class Properties and Built-in Property Editors
Mapping Complex Types to the Database
Types Info Subsystem
Connect an XAF Application to a Database Provider
Data Annotation Attributes
Create and Update the Application's Database
How to: Specify a Display Member for a Lookup Editor, Detail Form Caption, and more
Data Manipulation and Business Logic
User Interface and Behavior Customization
Data Filtering
Application Security and Data Safety
Multi-Tenancy (Data per Tenant)
Validation (Prevent Data Errors)
Conditional Appearance (Manage State of UI Elements)
Reporting (Shape, Export & Print Data)
Analytics (Extract Data Insights)
Document Management
Business Process Management
Event Planning
Localization
Accessibility Support
Debugging, Testing and Error Handling
Deployment
Support, QA & Troubleshooting
API Reference
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Storage, ORM, and Business Model Design

  • 2 minutes to read

XAF allows you to build a Business Model with the following ORM tools:

ORM

Modeling Approaches

Entity Framework Core by Microsoft (Documentation)

  • Code First
  • Model First
  • Database First

XPO ORM by DevExpress (Documentation)

  • Code First
  • Model First
  • Database First

Refer to the following topic for an ORM comparison table: Why We Recommend EF Core over XPO for New Development

Tip

To manage and display data not obtained from ORM, use non-persistent objects.

Business Classes

A business class is a model of a real-world object your application operates with (for example, Contact, Address, Task, etc.) Each class that takes part in an XAF UI construction process is a business class, and can be a class mapped to a database table – Entity Framework Entity or XPO Persistent Object.

XAF collects your business classes and generates UI elements for them.

If you do not need to persist an object state to the database, you can declare a regular class and apply the DomainComponentAttribute attribute to it – such a class also takes part in UI construction. Refer to the following topic for more details: Non-Persistent Objects.

Note

Refer to the following documentation section for information on Data Types for which XAF can automatically generate a UI: Data Types Supported by built-in Editors.

If the type you need to use can be displayed in the UI but the ORM tool you use cannot store this type in a database, refer to the following article: Mapping Complex Types to the Database.

See Also