Error with EntityDataSourceExtention to Enable Insert(): "type or name EntityDataSource could not be found"

Question

In Visual Web Developer 2010, I'm trying to implement the extension to EntityDataSource described on this page that enables Insert() to be used as a method:

http://social.msdn.microsoft.com/forums/en-US/adodotnetentityframework/thread/d8a3ecd8-55dd-45ad-8175-d7ce912f46c2/

I get a compile error "CS0246: The type or namespace name 'EntityDataSource' could not be found (are you missing a using directive or an assembly reference?)"

I originally created the class as provided on this page: http://forums.asp.net/t/1621469.aspx/1

No difference between the 2 (except the 1st link's version actually gets VWD to recognize the EntityDataSourceExtentions class name as something - color codes it in blue-green.) I should be using .NET 4.0.

Addition: These are the contents of the class, saved as EntityDataSourceExtentions.cs in App_Code:

using System.Collections.Specialized;

namespace System.Web.UI.WebControls
{
    public static class EntityDataSourceExtentions
    {
        private static bool DefaultOperationCallback(int affectedRows, Exception ex)
        {
                return false;
        }
        public static void Insert(this EntityDataSource dataSource)
        {
                (dataSource as IDataSource).GetView(string.Empty).Insert(new OrderedDictionary(),DefaultOperationCallback);
        }
    }
}

This is the content of web.config, since that seems to play a role in adding different assemblies to the compile:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="utf-8"?>
<configuration>
  <connectionStrings>
    <add name="CustomConn" connectionString="Removed=true;" providerName="System.Data.SqlClient" />
    <add name="CustomEntities" connectionString="removed=true;multipleactiveresultsets=True;App=EntityFramework&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
    <add name="TestConn" connectionString="removed=true;multipleactiveresultsets=True;App=EntityFramework&quot;" providerName="System.Data.EntityClient" />
  </connectionStrings>
  <system.web>
    <compilation debug="true" targetFramework="4.0">
      <assemblies>
        <add assembly="System.Security, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=X1" />
        <add assembly="System.Data.Entity, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=X2" />
        <add assembly="System.Data.Entity.Design, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=X3" />
      </assemblies>
      <buildProviders>
        <add extension=".edmx" type="System.Data.Entity.Design.AspNet.EntityDesignerBuildProvider" />
      </buildProviders>
    </compilation>
    <customErrors mode="Off" />
    <pages>
      <controls>
        <add tagPrefix="custom" tagName="SidebarAds" src="~/_user_controls/SidebarAds.ascx" />
        <add tagPrefix="custom" tagName="ComingSoon" src="~/_user_controls/ComingSoon.ascx" />
        <add tagPrefix="custom" tagName="StateSelect" src="~/_user_controls/StateSelect.ascx" />
      </controls>
    </pages>
  </system.web>
</configuration>

Now that I'm looking at web.config... I noted on a few websites, that there was a difference between "System.Data.Entity" and "System.Web.Entity". Should there be a .Web.Entity assembly added to make this work? Anyone happen to know its tag?

Answer 1

Apparently the verbiage I needed to know is "reference".

And the menu to deal with this in VWD is Website > Add Reference... followed by the .NET tab.

Gives me:

<add assembly="System.Web.Entity, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>
<add assembly="System.Web.Entity.Design, Version=4.0.0.0, Culture=neutral, PublicKeyToken=B77A5C561934E089"/>

(And just to know, apparently the PublicKeyToken is not any sort of sensitive data.

Helpful info:

Adding assembly reference within web.config

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/.NET_assembly )

And, finally, I added the EntityDataSourceExtentions.cs file back into the App_Code folder, and rebuilt the site, and I don't get the compile error anymore. (Funny that I should have to add in a reference to that assembly when I'm already using the datasource in the page successfully. Be blessed if I knew how it was all working.) So while I still don't know if EntityDataSource.Insert() will solve my design problem, I at least got past the initial, obnoxious compile error.