LINQ to Reckon Data


LINQ offers versatile querying capabilities within the .NET Framework (v3.0+), offering a straightforward method for programmatic data access through CData ADO.NET Data Providers. In this article, we demonstrate the use of LINQ to retrieve information from the Reckon Data Provider.

This article illustrates using LINQ to access tables within the Reckon via the CData ADO.NET Data Provider for Reckon. To achieve this, we will use LINQ to Entity Framework, which facilitates the generation of connections and can be seamlessly employed with any CData ADO.NET Data Providers to access data through LINQ.

See the help documentation for a guide to setting up an EF 6 project to use the provider.

  1. In a new project in Visual Studio, right-click on the project and choose to add a new item. Add an ADO.NET Entity Data Model.
  2. Choose EF Designer from Database and click Next.
  3. Add a new Data Connection, and change your data source type to "CData Reckon Data Source".

  4. Enter your data source connection information.

    When you are connecting to a local Reckon instance, you do not need to set any connection properties.

    Requests to Reckon are made through the Remote Connector. The Remote Connector runs on the same machine as Reckon and accepts connections through a lightweight, embedded Web server. The server supports SSL/TLS, enabling users to connect securely from remote machines.

    The first time you connect to your company file, authorize the Remote Connector with Reckon. See the "Getting Started" chapter of the help documentation for a guide.

    Below is a typical connection string:

    User=RCUser;Password=RCUserPassword;URL=http://remotehost:8166;
  5. If saving your entity connection to App.Config, set an entity name. In this example we are setting ReckonEntities as our entity connection in App.Config.
  6. Enter a model name and select any tables or views you would like to include in the model.

Using the entity you created, you can now perform select , update, delete, and insert commands. For example:

ReckonEntities context = new ReckonEntities(); var customersQuery = from customers in context.Customers select customers; foreach (var result in customersQuery) { Console.WriteLine("{0} {1} ", result.ID, result.Name); }

See "LINQ and Entity Framework" chapter in the help documentation for example queries of the supported LINQ.

Ready to get started?

Download a free trial of the Reckon Data Provider to get started:

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Learn more:

Reckon Accounting Icon Reckon ADO.NET Provider

Complete read-write access to Reckon enables developers to search (Customers, Transactions, Invoices, Sales Receipts, etc.), update items, edit customers, and more, from any .NET application.

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