One deficiency with Entity Framework is the ability to load data from a stored procedure or a direct query when the column names don’t match your model property names exactly. In one of my previous posts, I detailed how the EF API can be used to retrieve column mappings. These column mappings can be used in conjunction with a SqlDataReader to map a query result, properly, to your EF model.
Populating Entity Framework Models with SqlDataReader
posted on January 2, 2017 by long2know in ASP.NET, Entity Framework
Using Table Value Parameters (2nd edition)
posted on December 16, 2016 by long2know in ASP.NET, Database, Entity Framework
In a previous post, I demoed how to use Table Valued Parameters (TVP’s) with EF. This works great, but, if you’ll notice, it only suppports one-column TVP’s with a simple scalar list of values. I expanded this a bit.
Entity Framework Entity Mappings
posted on December 14, 2016 by long2know in ASP.NET, Entity Framework
There are a few limitations of Entity Framework 6.x that require various work-arounds. One of those limitations is not being able to take direct advantage of entity mappings that are defined. However, it is possible to utilize Entity Framework’s API’s to retrieve and consume this information.
Building LINQ Expressions (Part 2)
posted on October 10, 2016 by long2know in Database, LINQ
Continuing our examination of building LINQ expressions, let’s dive further into generic methods that can build expressions for any enumerable list of objects. In part one, I showed how to build a simple string expression, but we can make this much more robust.
LINQ Outer Joins
posted on September 7, 2016 by long2know in ASP.NET, Database, Entity Framework, LINQ
Using LINQ’s FluentAPI, left/outer joins are difficult. With a little work, it’s possible to perform left outer joins, though.
Complex EF joins and aggregation
posted on August 30, 2016 by long2know in Database, Entity Framework, LINQ
There are a few scenarios, especially when using partitioning/windowing T-SQL functions, that EF falls down a bit. It also is not entirely straight forward to perform somewhat complex joins and aggregation.
Using EF6 with .NET Core
posted on August 10, 2016 by long2know in ASP.NET, Core, Entity Framework, MVC
EntityFramework 7 is the defacto ORM used with .NET Core to provide cross-platform compatible data access. EF7 is missing many features that are present in EF6, though. My initial apprehension was that this would create a scenario where one could not use .NET Core if their projects relied on EF6 features. Fortunately, it’s pretty easy to get EF6 working with .NET Core. The sacrifice is a loss of cross-platform hosting ability.
Porting EF6 to EF7 or EF Core
posted on July 6, 2016 by long2know in ASP.NET, Core, Entity Framework
Since my foray into utilizing .NET Core to port an older CRUD app using Angular 1.x and Entity Framework 6.x, my first stumbling block is dealing with breaking changes between EF 6.x and newer versions of EF.
Entity Framework blocking stored procedures
posted on June 16, 2016 by long2know in ASP.NET, Database, Entity Framework
I’ve written a number of posts detailing running and working with stored procedures in Entity Framework 6.x. Yesterday, I ran into a weird issue.
Using Table Value Parameters
posted on May 23, 2016 by long2know in Database, Entity Framework
Over the weekend, I needed to be able to execute a stored procedure from EntityFramework that had a table value parameter (TVP) as an input.
I had never worked with TVP’s before. Utilizing them was not obvious to me from either a code-based approach or even directly with T-SQL. Here’s how I accomplished it, though.