CODEWITHSUNDEEP
entity-framework-4
Scott Davies
Scott Davies

Reputation: 3755

How does Entity Framework 4 figure out pluralization?

While reading an article on EF 4, I read that EF pluralizes certain objects (EntitySet's, Navigation's pointing to EntityCollection's, etc.), while using the singular form for other objects. Out of curiosity - how does it do this ? Is it using a built-in dictionary ?

Thanks,

Scott

Upvotes: 2

Views: 993

Answers (1)

marc_s
marc_s

Reputation: 755157

Microsoft added a PluralizationService base abstract class to the .NET framework - which can be used for other purposes as well!

public abstract  class PluralizationService
{ 
        public static PluralizationService CreateService(CultureInfo culture);

        public abstract string Pluralize(string word);
        public abstract string Singularize(string word);
}

See a great blog post on EF Pluralization which explains it in great detail. Microsoft provides a few concrete implementations of that service in various languages / cultures, but you're totally free to roll your own.

I don't know for a fact how the EF4 provided pluralization services work - but most likely it's a combination of certain linguistic rules, and a plethora of exceptions to handle differently. Those are most likely stored as resources or in some other way inside the relevant assemblies.

Upvotes: 2

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