After working with a database project in Visual Studio, I thought it was probably time to create a simple console application to interact with the database using the current version of Entity Framework (v6.0).

So as we’ve already created the cddb database in a previous post, we’ll simply create a new console project and work with that DB.

• Create your application, as stated mine is a console application
• Add new item and select Data | ADO.NET Entity Data Model, mine’s named CddbContext (as this will include the source for the data context created for EF)
• Select Code First from database
• Create a new connection and supply the relevant details for your database connection
• Press next then select the tables (and views) you want to generate code for – then click Finish

Here’s the code generated

CddbContext.cs

public partial class CddbContext : DbContext
{
   public CddbContext()
      : base("name=CddbContext")
   {
   }

   public virtual DbSet<album> albums { get; set; }
   public virtual DbSet<artist> artists { get; set; }

   protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
   {
      modelBuilder.Entity<artist>()
         .HasMany(e => e.albums)
         .WithRequired(e => e.artist)
         .WillCascadeOnDelete(false);
   }
}

artist.cs

[Table("artist")]
public partial class artist
{
   [System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage(
    "Microsoft.Usage", 
    "CA2214:DoNotCallOverridableMethodsInConstructors")]
   public artist()
   {
      albums = new HashSet<album>();
   }

   public int Id { get; set; }

   [Required]
   [StringLength(50)]
   public string Name { get; set; }

   [System.Diagnostics.CodeAnalysis.SuppressMessage(
    "Microsoft.Usage", 
    "CA2227:CollectionPropertiesShouldBeReadOnly")]
   public virtual ICollection<album> albums { get; set; }
}

album.cs

[Table("album")]
public partial class album
{
   public int Id { get; set; }

   [Required]
   [StringLength(50)]
   public string Title { get; set; }

   public int ArtistId { get; set; }

   public virtual artist artist { get; set; }
}

finally let’s create a simple but of code to get the artists from the database, so in Main we have

using (var db = new CddbContext())
{
   var artists = db.artists;
   foreach (var a in artists)
   {
      Console.WriteLine(a.Name);
   }
}

If your database schema changes you will need to re-run the steps to generate your data context etc. or code by hand. There isn’t (currently) a way to update existing classes – so don’t make changes to the generated code and expect it to still exist after regeneration.