The latest release of Npgsql also adds improvements for Entity Framework and support for Postgre 9.4’s JSONB data type.

Npgsql is a .Net Data Provider for Postgresql that you can use from any program developed for the .Net framework to access the Postrgre database server.

Npgsql 2.2.0 overcomes a major drawback of the earlier version, which you couldn’t make accessible from Visual Studio because it didn’t support DDEX. There’s a tutorial on Github showing the steps you need to use Npgsql with DDEX. The developers are working on an EXE installer for Npgsql, which will provide an easier route.

Another improvement in the new version is support for the JSONB data type. This was introduced in Postgresql 9.4, and improves the way Postrgre handles data in JSON format. When PostgreSQL added support for ‘standard’ JSON, it meant the relational database could deal with data that would otherwise be handled by NoSQL systems. JSONB stores such data in a binary format, giving a better performance and features such as indexing. It is seen as the future for JSON data. The current version of Npgsql also supports JSON and HStore data types, so you can work with all three in .NET applications.

Support for Entity Framework 6 features is also included in this release. Support for EFMigration and database creation has been added, and the new version of Npgsql now lets you create Code First projects without having to first create a database. The way relational expressions, column references, and column name aliasing are handled have been fixed so that queries no longer fail. Handling of joins has also been improved so that if a name clash occurs, Npgsql now creates an alias.

Date functions are another area that has improved, with correctly functioning DateDiff functions. Operator precedence has also been made to work correctly for postfix, prefix and binary.

Support for GSSAPI on Windows has been added, so it’s easier to use Active Directory when authenticating users, and the final major improvement is full SSLStream support.

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