Partial Methods

Partial methods are a C# 3.0 feature that help developers modify autogenerated code without fearing that their changes will be overwritten if the code is regenerated. In Visual Studio 2008, they are used by the Object Relational Designer and SqlMetal, two tools that play an important role in LINQ to SQL development. Although code generation is the primary scenario for partial methods, they are now a standard feature of the C# language, and developers can use them when and where they want.

Partial methods allow developers to reserve a name for a method that can optionally be implemented by consumers of their code. They are declared inside partial classes, as shown in Listing 4.1.