Code First has automatic functionality built in to help you get up and running with a database and warn you when you may have made a mistake that will cause your app to fail. This is generally helpful when you are developing an application – especially when you are new to EF – but when … Continue reading Reducing Code First Database Chatter
Code First
EF6.1 Mapping Between Types & Tables
A while back I blogged about how to find what table(s) a given entity is mapped to. The solution in that post worked around the fact that the API for accessing this information was internal. In EF6.1 we made the mapping API public, so it’s now a lot easier. The other advantage of this code … Continue reading EF6.1 Mapping Between Types & Tables
EF6/6.1 Level 300-400 Talk-in-a-Box
I recently posted an EF6 Level 100-200 Talk-in-a-Box to make it easier for folks to present EF6 to their user group, local conference, work colleagues, or anyone who would listen. I also recently put together a more in-depth talk on EF for Building Modern Web Apps day of Azure Week. I just tidied up the … Continue reading EF6/6.1 Level 300-400 Talk-in-a-Box
EF6 Level 100-200 Talk-in-a-Box
Putting a good technical talk together takes a decent amount of work. You need to make sure your talk tells a story from end-to-end, you need to give folks enough context (without spending the whole talk in PowerPoint), and you need clear concise demos that folks can follow. You also have to make sure your … Continue reading EF6 Level 100-200 Talk-in-a-Box
EF Code First Mapping Between Types & Tables
Starting in EF6.1 there is an easier way to do this. See my new EF6.1 Mapping Between Types & Tables post for details. Entity Framework includes the MetadataWorkspace which gives you access to the metadata EF keeps about the shape of your model. The problem is that the Mapping section of this – the bit … Continue reading EF Code First Mapping Between Types & Tables
How to Drop a Database from Visual Studio 2012
Seems like it should be easy right? It depends which SKU of Visual Studio you have… Option 1: SQL Server Object Explorer If you have a SKU of Visual Studio that includes SQL Server Object Explorer (SSOE) then it’s pretty easy. You’ve probably only got this if you parted with some hard earned cash … Continue reading How to Drop a Database from Visual Studio 2012
EF6: Switching Identity On/Off with a Custom Migration Operation
Here is the scenario, I have a class in my Code First model that has a primary key configured as an identity column. I want to change it so that I can generate values in my code. Alternatively I may want to change an existing column - that my code is generating values for - … Continue reading EF6: Switching Identity On/Off with a Custom Migration Operation
EF6: Writing Your Own Code First Migration Operations
Migrations provides a set of strongly typed APIs for performing common operation, for example CreateIndex("dbo.Blogs", "Url"). We also provide a method that allows you to run arbitrary SQL when you want to do something that isn’t supported by the API, for example Sql("GRANT SELECT ON dbo.Blogs to guest"). There are some disadvantages to the Sql … Continue reading EF6: Writing Your Own Code First Migration Operations
Extending And Customizing Code First Models – Part 2 of 2
Here is the scenario, your company ships a library or application that contains a Code First model for accessing the database. Your customers want to extend this model to include extra types/properties to meet their specific business needs. These types/properties will be stored in additional tables/columns in the application database. In Part 1 we looked at … Continue reading Extending And Customizing Code First Models – Part 2 of 2
Extending and Customizing Code First Models – Part 1 of 2
Here is the scenario, your company ships a library or application that contains a Code First model for accessing the database. Your customers want to extend this model to include extra types/properties to meet their specific business needs. These types/properties will be stored in additional tables/columns in the application database. In this post I’ll walk … Continue reading Extending and Customizing Code First Models – Part 1 of 2
EF6 Code First: Configuring Unmapped Base Types
If your object model contains inheritance, Code First gives you two options for the base type – it can either be mapped or unmapped. A mapped base type means the inheritance hierarchy is represented in the database using either the TPH, TPT or TPC pattern. An unmapped base type means Code First effectively ignores your … Continue reading EF6 Code First: Configuring Unmapped Base Types
EF6 Code First: Mapping All Private Properties Using Custom Conventions
A while back I blogged about mapping to private properties with Code First. The approach shown in that post works with EF4.1 onwards but it requires you to explicitly configure every private property that you want included in your model. That’s going to get tiresome if you have a big model and want all private … Continue reading EF6 Code First: Mapping All Private Properties Using Custom Conventions
Code First Migrations – Customizing Scaffolded Code
A while back I blogged about customizing the SQL that is generated by Code First Migrations. In this post I’m going to step back up the pipeline a bit and look at customizing the code that gets scaffolded when you call Add-Migration. When we built Code First Migrations we made an effort to make everything … Continue reading Code First Migrations – Customizing Scaffolded Code
Code First Stored Procedures with Multiple Results
One of the most common request we get for Code First is to natively support stored procedures (sprocs). That item is right at the top of our backlog now – but it didn’t make it into EF5. While using sprocs for insert, update and delete really isn’t possible with Code First yet, you can use … Continue reading Code First Stored Procedures with Multiple Results
Customizing ‘Reverse Engineer Code First’ in the EF Power Tools
Beta 2 of the Entity Framework Power Tools was recently released. By far the most popular feature out of these power tools is the ability to reverse engineer a Code First model from an existing database. Admittedly ‘Code First’ wasn’t the best choice of names… Code First is really just a code-based alternate to the … Continue reading Customizing ‘Reverse Engineer Code First’ in the EF Power Tools
What tables are in my EF model? And my Database?
Today I was writing some code that needed to know what tables are present in an EF model… and I realized I’ve written this code multiple times and never remember all the little nuances of it… just in case you ever need to do the same I thought I’d turn it into a blog post … Continue reading What tables are in my EF model? And my Database?
Dynamically Building a Model with Code First
I’ve answered a few emails recently on this topic so it felt like time to turn it into a blog post. In this scenario the set of classes that make up your model isn’t known at compile time and is discovered dynamically at runtime. An example of such a scenario is a WordPress/Orchard/etc. style website … Continue reading Dynamically Building a Model with Code First
Testing With a Fake DbContext
One of the most popular posts on my blog has been “EF CTP4 Tips & Tricks: Testing With Fake DbContext”. That post was built on a pre-release version of Entity Framework so I thought I’d provide an updated post on top of the DbContext API surface we ended up shipping. In this post we are … Continue reading Testing With a Fake DbContext
Running & Scripting Migrations from Code
Code First Migrations is included as part of Entity Framework starting with the EF 4.3 release. Migrations are normally created and run from the Package Manager Console in Visual Studio. These commands are just thin wrappers over public APIs that you can call directly from your own code. In this post you’ll see how to … Continue reading Running & Scripting Migrations from Code
Customizing Code First Migrations Provider
Code First Migrations is included as part of Entity Framework starting with the EF 4.3 release. One feature we haven’t really blogged about yet is the ability to include additional arguments in a migration operation. These arguments are then made available to the SQL generator. You can then derive from the SQL generators that we … Continue reading Customizing Code First Migrations Provider
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