Migrations are a system for updating the database schema and keeping track of ongoing changes to it. In fact, after creating the first migration, you’ll see a table named EFMigrationsHistory is created. This system allows us, in case of an error, to revert the changes. In EF Core, you can perform this operation by installing the NuGet package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design in addition to the EF Core package of the database provider you are using.

what is entity framework core

Security enhancements include making encryption enabled by default, requiring valid server certificates and client trust to avoid SqlExceptions, primarily affecting Microsoft SQL Server users. EF Core is optimized for performance and scalability, with features such as query caching, lazy loading, batching, and asynchronous query execution. It allows developers to fine-tune performance by optimizing database queries, minimizing data access overhead, and leveraging database-specific optimizations. Entity Framework Core (EF Core) is an open-source object-relational mapping (ORM) framework developed by Microsoft for .NET applications. Again, when we want to read the data from the database into our application, we also have to write some custom code to map the data to our model classes like Student, Department, Address, etc. This is a very common task as a developer for us that we do almost in every application.

Introduction to Entity Framework Core

Each record’s type is distinguished by a Discriminator column, which usually holds a simplified C# type name. The Discriminator column is invisible to developers from C#, but we can see it in the database schema generated by EF Core 5. An ORM (Object Relational Mapper) is a data access library that enables us to map each table in our databases what is entity framework to a corresponding class. It allows us to map each individual column and its corresponding data type, and it seeks to provide a more fluent way of handling data access through a global configuration. In the case of Entity Framework Core (EF Core), this configuration is represented by the DbContext, which we will delve into further later on.

Common errors happen because the code might not reflect the state of the data source. Or, we might address columns that are removed or changed, or with incorrect column names. Entity Framework Core is a powerful ORM framework that simplifies database access and management in .NET applications.

Code of conduct

Alternatively, by including it in our appsettings.json file, we can retrieve it using this approach. We welcome community pull requests for bug fixes, enhancements, and documentation. Use the –version option to specify a preview version to install.

what is entity framework core

There are multiple ways to insert data into our database, but it’s a good idea to use the data seed mechanism of EF Core for demos and necessary look-up values. In EF Core, we can override the OnModelCreating method on our EntertainmentDbContext. This repository contains a simple TodoList application built using Entity Framework Core (EF Core). In this application, we explore the fundamental concepts of setting up and using EF Core to interact with a database. This library implements the common ADO.NET abstractions for connections, commands, data readers, and so on. For more information, see Microsoft.Data.Sqlite on Microsoft Docs.

Actors playing characters in multiple productions

However, it can also be used with standard .NET 4.5+ framework based applications. Some people prefer to write all queries (Dapper) and some people prefer to work with LINQ (EF Core). Both ORMs are great and work with any kind of project, from small-scale to massive enterprise-level applications. Prepare a plan for possible failures such as version rollback, server fallback, etc. The Include method is used to specify the related entity (Books) that you want to load eagerly. The SQL statement is still very readable, even when we consider the answer we are returning from our database.

As a developer, we mostly work with data-driven applications, and the ORM Framework generates the necessary SQL (to perform the CRUD operation) that the underlying database can understand. So, in simple words, we can say that the ORM Framework eliminates the need for most of the data access code that, as a developer, we generally write. Entity Framework Core (EF Core) is an open-source object-relational mapping (ORM) framework developed by Microsoft. It is a lightweight and cross-platform version of Entity Framework (EF).

Entity Framework Core: Passing a function to a Where and doing a Select will construct the object? [duplicate]

This approach simplifies database design and maintenance, as changes to the entity classes are reflected in the database schema through code-first migrations. It allows developers to define .NET classes, known as entity classes, that represent database tables and relationships, and automatically generates SQL queries to interact with the underlying database. All data access in Entity Framework Core happens through a class that inherits from DbContext. In our project, we’ll implement a AcmeDataContext which exposes a DbSet property of People. Entity Framework Core maps this C# class to our People table via conventions. With our context created, we can execute database commands like queries, inserts, and deletions.

what is entity framework core

Technically, EF Core 5 can run on .NET Core 3.1, but aligning versions is always a good idea. DEV Community — A constructive and inclusive social network for software developers. I hope you’ve enjoyed this introduction to data processing in .NET, and I hope it proves to be helpful in your studies. If you liked the article, please give it a thumbs up, and I hope you’re willing to leave a comment to share knowledge and exchange opinions.

Object-Relational Mapper (ORM) is a kind of bridge between strongly-typed objects and a relational data source. The purpose is to enable developers to work with the data stored in databases in an object-oriented way. To achieve that, EF Core ORM provides a map between the objects defined in the application domain and the data stored in the database. Before we answer these exciting questions, let’s talk about LINQ, also known as Language-Integrated Query syntax.

  • Entity Framework Core is the new and improved version of the Entity Framework for .NET Core applications.
  • EF Core uses the naming convention of [Entity]Id to map values to the in-memory object instance.
  • Entity Framework Core has trade-offs of performance overhead and increased memory usage compared to more tedious approaches like ADO.NET.
  • If you’re working on an existing project that already using EF6 or one that is linked to the .NET Framework, it’s still a good option to use EF 6.

Aggregation is one of the most important reasons to use a relational database, and with LINQ, using an aggregate function like Sum, Average, and Max is straightforward. Let’s find the highest-rated production by averaging the Star value on a Rating. We can see that EF Core utilized the Discriminator column, even though there is no explicit mention of it in our database model. EF Core comes with a ToQueryString extension method to apply to IQueryable instances to retrieve the generated SQL string.

Seeding initial data

If the command ends successfully, we will get the database with the identical structure as the initial database. As you can imagine, the SQL generated by EF Core will reflect the complexity of our request. We can see that EF Core applies a sub-query to retrieve the average rating value of a Production. Additionally, it uses an additional sub-query to order our results. We can also use the OfType method after accessing the Productions property to narrow down to a particular hierarchical subset. We had mentioned that both a Movie and a Series could be a Production.

what is entity framework core