How to: Add an Updater Method

Article
02/04/2013

You can enable users to update business data in a SharePoint external list by creating an Updater method. For more information, see Designing a Business Data Connectivity Model.

To create an Updater method

On the BDC designer, select an entity.
On the View menu, click Other Windows, and then click BDC Method Details.

The BDC Method Details window opens. For more information about this window, see BDC Model Design Tools Overview.
In the BDC Method Details window, from the Add a Method drop-down list, select Create Updater Method.

Visual Studio adds the following elements to the model. These elements appear in the BDC Method Details window.
- A method named Update.
- An input parameter for the method.
- A type descriptor for the parameter. By default, Visual Studio uses the entity type descriptor that you defined for the Finder method (for example: Contact).
- A method instance for the method.
For more information, see Designing a Business Data Connectivity Model.

Note

If the identifier of the entity type represents a field in a database table that is not automatically generated, set the Pre-Updater Field property to True.
In Solution Explorer, right-click the service code file that was generated for the entity, and then click View Code.

The entity service code file opens in the Code Editor. For more information about the entity service code file, see Creating a Business Data Connectivity Model.

Add code to the Updator method to update data. The following example updates information for a contact in the AdventureWorks sample database for SQL Server.

Note

Replace the value of the ServerName field with the name of your server.

Public Shared Sub Update(ByVal contact As Contact)
    Const ServerName As String = "MySQLServerName"
    Dim dataContext As AdventureWorksDataContext = _
        New AdventureWorksDataContext("Data Source=" & ServerName & _
            ";Initial Catalog=AdventureWorks;Integrated Security=True")

    Dim ContactToUpdate As Contact = (From Contacts In dataContext.Contacts.AsEnumerable().Take(20) _
         Where Contacts.ContactID = contact.ContactID _
         Select Contacts).Single()

    With ContactToUpdate
        .FirstName = contact.FirstName
        .LastName = contact.LastName
        .EmailAddress = contact.EmailAddress
        .Phone = contact.Phone
        .EmailPromotion = contact.EmailPromotion
        .NameStyle = contact.NameStyle
        .PasswordHash = contact.PasswordHash
        .PasswordSalt = contact.PasswordSalt
    End With

    dataContext.SubmitChanges()

End Sub

public static void Update(Contact contact)
{
    const string ServerName = "MySQLServerName";
    AdventureWorksDataContext dataContext = new AdventureWorksDataContext
          ("Data Source=" + ServerName + ";" +
           "Initial Catalog=AdventureWorks;Integrated Security=True");

    var contactToUpdate = (from contacts in dataContext.Contacts
                            where contacts.ContactID == contact.ContactID
                            select contacts).Single();

    contactToUpdate.FirstName = contact.FirstName;
    contactToUpdate.LastName = contact.LastName;
    contactToUpdate.EmailAddress = contact.EmailAddress;
    contactToUpdate.Phone = contact.Phone;
    contactToUpdate.EmailPromotion = contact.EmailPromotion;
    contactToUpdate.NameStyle = contact.NameStyle;
    contactToUpdate.PasswordHash = contact.PasswordHash;
    contactToUpdate.PasswordSalt = contact.PasswordSalt;
    contactToUpdate.ModifiedDate = DateTime.Now;
    contactToUpdate.rowguid = Guid.NewGuid();
    dataContext.SubmitChanges();

}

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How to: Add an Updater Method

To create an Updater method

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