[Solved]-How would I get the column names from a Model LINQ?-LINQ,C#

your columns should be mapped as properties on your project model. i'm not sure if you can get the underlying database structure when using linq to sql. the entire point of linq to sql is to abstract the database away.

here an another way:

        public string[] getcolumnnames()
        {
            var propnames = getpropertynames(_context.users);
            return propnames.toarray();
        }

        static ienumerable<string> getpropertynames<t>(ienumerable<t> lst)
        {
            foreach (var pi in typeof(t).getproperties())
            {
                yield return pi.name;
            }
        }

using todd smiths(+1) solution you get all properties (included entity sets, etc). to filter out all non-column properties this will do the trick:

var columnnames = db.columnnames<orders>().where(n => n.member.getcustomattributes(typeof(system.data.linq.mapping.columnattribute), false).firstordefault() != null).select(n => n.name);

your projects wrapper will have a set of properties each with a [column] attribute. so just use reflection to enumerate the properties with that attribute.

thanks guys, you got me started on the right track. i found my solution with the following code. i can then iterate through the datamembers and pull out their individual properties such as name, type, etc.

var db = new gmpdatacontext();
var columnnames = db.mapping.mappingsource
                    .getmodel(typeof(gmpdatacontext))
                    .getmetatype(typeof(project))
                    .datamembers;

this would be nice to have as an extension method:

public static class linqextensions
{
  public static readonlycollection<metadatamember> columnnames<tentity> (this datacontext source)
  {
      return source.mapping.mappingsource.getmodel (typeof (datacontext)).getmetatype (typeof (tentity)).datamembers;
  }
}

example:

var columnnames = mydatacontext.columnnames<orders> ();