Firebolt LinqToDB driver

Motivation

Currently, there are no official LinqToDB driver for Firebolt. This leads to following issues:

• usage of direct SQL queries instead of Linq expressions;
• overcomplicated infrastructure around ADO.NET classes;
• can't use variety of ORMs and features/extensions;
• devs have to write all SQL queries, even simple ones like SELECT * FROM table.

Goals

Providing a LinqToDB driver for Firebolt will simplify usage of DB for newcomers.

Limitations

Currently, it is an MVP to narrow down the scope of the project.

• No support for LinqToDB features like InsertOrUpdate, InsertOrReplace, etc.;
• Not all Firebolt-specific functions are supported (e.g. geospatial, DataSketches, etc.);
• No support for Schema retrieval (yet);
• Some other issues could be present, but they are not critical for current goal.

Target platforms

• NET8 (8.0.414) — backporting
• NET9 (9.0.305) — mainstream

Dogfooding

We in Similarweb are using this package. This would encourage us to constantly improve it.

Supported versions

• Firebolt: tested on Firebolt v2 only (v1 is deprecated / untested).
  • Install FireboltNetSDK 1.9.1 or 1.10.x yourself (peer dependency; not bundled).
• LinqToDB: 6.0 – 6.4 (one nupkg; dependency linq2db >= 6.0.0).
  • Materialized CTE (AsMaterializedCte): name-suffix + BuildWithClause fallback when built against < 6.3; native IsMaterialized when built against ≥ 6.3. The published package is built against 6.0.0 (suffix fallback).
  • CI matrix: linq2db {6.0.0, 6.1.0, 6.2.0, 6.3.0, 6.4.0} × FireboltNetSDK {1.9.1, 1.10.1} × TFM {net8.0, net9.0}.

How to use

1. Install this package (see how to install)

2. Add FireboltNetSDK package since this implementation uses same way of loading ADO.NET classes, as LinqToDB;

3. In your code add:

   Registration.AddDataProvider(); // this will register Firebolt provider
   var options = new DataOptions()
       .UseConnectionString(Registration.DataProviderName, connectionString);
   var db = new DataConnection(options);
   // here you may use `db` as usual LinqToDB connection

4. In case you want real LinqToDB features, you should use db.GetTable<T>() method to get table as LinqToDB table. For example:

   var table = db.GetTable<YourEntity>();
   var result = table.Where(x => x.Id == 1).ToList();

Installing package

Using .NET CLI

dotnet add package Similarweb.LinqToDB.Firebolt

Using Visual Studio UI

Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution and search for Similarweb.LinqToDB.Firebolt

Using Rider UI

Tools > NuGet > Manage NuGet packages for <solution name> and search for Similarweb.LinqToDB.Firebolt

Using Package Manager Console:

Install-Package Similarweb.LinqToDB.Firebolt