How to: Turn pluralization on and off (O/R Designer)

  • Article

Note

This article applies to Visual Studio 2015. If you're looking for the latest Visual Studio documentation, see Visual Studio documentation. We recommend upgrading to the latest version of Visual Studio. Download it here

By default, when you drag database objects that have names ending in s or ies from Server Explorer/Database Explorer onto the LINQ to SQL Tools in Visual Studio, the names of the generated entity classes are changed from plural to singular. This is done to more accurately represent the fact that the instantiated entity class maps to a single record of data. For example, adding a Customers table to the O/R Designer results in an entity class named Customer because the class will hold data for only a single customer.

Note

Pluralization is on by default only in the English-language version of Visual Studio.

Note

Your computer might show different names or locations for some of the Visual Studio user interface elements in the following instructions. The Visual Studio edition that you have and the settings that you use determine these elements. For more information, see Personalizing the IDE.

To turn pluralization on and off

  1. On the Tools menu, click Options.

  2. In the Options dialog box, expand Database Tools.

Note

Select Show all settings if the Database Tools node is not visible.

  1. Click O/R Designer.

  2. Set Pluralization of names to Enabled = False to set the O/R Designer so that it does not change class names.

  3. Set Pluralization of names to Enabled = True to apply pluralization rules to the class names of objects added to the O/R Designer.

See Also

LINQ to SQL Tools in Visual Studio LINQ to SQL Accessing data in Visual Studio