> For the complete documentation index, see [llms.txt](https://raviram.gitbook.io/ef-core/llms.txt). Markdown versions of documentation pages are available by appending `.md` to page URLs; this page is available as [Markdown](https://raviram.gitbook.io/ef-core/introduction/what-is-an-orm.md).

# What is an ORM

## What is ORM?

ORM will allow your application to interact with databases in an **object-orientated way**. You can define tables and their relationship using the ORM library and then communicate with database tables.

Your applications will be able to interact with databases in **terms of objects**, where each table will be represented by a model class. These classes will have access to numerous functions from the ORM library and these functions will perform specific database actions like create, read, update, delete, etc.

<figure><img src="/files/XM2YpoG4J12GW6sbKBj4" alt=""><figcaption></figcaption></figure>

### The Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch

Object-Relational Impedance Mismatch' (sometimes called the 'paradigm mismatch') is just a fancy way of saying that object models and relational models do not work very well together.&#x20;

RDBMSs represent data in a tabular format (a spreadsheet is a good visualization for those not familiar with RDBMSs), whereas object-oriented languages, such as C# and Java, represent it as an interconnected graph of objects.&#x20;

Loading and storing graphs of objects using a tabular relational database exposes us to many mismatch problems. These topics are beyond the scope of this discussion, nevertheless you can get a fair idea here:

{% embed url="<https://hibernate.org/orm/what-is-an-orm/>" %}


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