Book Image

Mastering Entity Framework

By : Rahul Rajat Singh
Book Image

Mastering Entity Framework

By: Rahul Rajat Singh

Overview of this book

<p>Data access is an integral part of any software application. Entity Framework provides a model-based system that makes data access effortless for developers by freeing you from writing similar data access code for all of your domain models.</p> <p>Mastering Entity Framework provides you with a range of options when developing a data-oriented application. You’ll get started by managing the database relationships as Entity relationships and perform domain modeling using Entity Framework. You will then explore how you can reuse data access layer code such as stored procedures and table-valued functions, and perform various typical activities such as validations and error handling. You’ll learn how to retrieve data by querying the Entity Data Model and understand how to use LINQ to Entities and Entity SQL to query the Entity Data Model.</p>

Related Content you might be interested in

Current Title:

Small book image
Mastering Entity Framework
Rahul Rajat Singh
Feb, 2015 | 304 pages
No titles found
Table of Contents (19 chapters)
Mastering Entity Framework
Mastering Entity Framework
Credits
Credits
About the Author
About the Author
About the Reviewers
About the Reviewers
www.PacktPub.com
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Preface
Free Chapter
1
Introduction to Entity Framework
Introduction to Entity Framework
Entity Framework modeling and persistence
Development styles and different Entity Framework approaches
Comparing the development styles
Entity Framework Database First approach
Entity Framework Model First approach
Entity Framework Code First approach
Performing CRUD operations using Entity Framework
Choosing persistence approaches
Summary
2
Entity Framework DB First – Managing Entity Relationships
Entity Framework DB First – Managing Entity Relationships
Understanding database relationships
Creating the Entity model
Modeling a one-to-many relationship
Modeling a one-to-one relationship using Entity Framework
Modeling a many-to-many relationship using Entity Framework
Using navigation properties for data access
Entity Framework – behind the scenes
Summary
3
Entity Framework DB First – Performing Model Validations
Entity Framework DB First – Performing Model Validations
Model validations using Entity Framework
Model validations using data annotations
Summary
4
Entity Framework DB First – Inheritance Relationships between Entities
Entity Framework DB First – Inheritance Relationships between Entities
Domain modeling using inheritance in Entity Framework
The Table per Type inheritance
The Table per Class Hierarchy inheritance
The Table per Concrete Class inheritance
Choosing the inheritance strategy
Summary
5
Entity Framework DB First – Using Views, Stored Procedures, and Functions
Entity Framework DB First – Using Views, Stored Procedures, and Functions
Using views, procedures, and functions
Using Entity Framework with views
Using Entity Framework with stored procedures
Using Entity Framework with functions
Summary
6
Entity Framework Code First – Domain Modeling and Managing Entity Relationships
Entity Framework Code First – Domain Modeling and Managing Entity Relationships
Understanding the Entity Framework Code First approach
Understanding the Code First conventions and configurations
Implementing Entity Framework Code First
Managing Entity relationships using the Code First approach
Inheritance with the Entity Framework Code First approach
Summary
7
Entity Framework Code First – Managing Database Creation and Seeding Data
Entity Framework Code First – Managing Database Creation and Seeding Data
Managing database connections
Managing database initialization
Seeding data
Summary
8
Querying the Entity Data Model – LINQ to Entities
Querying the Entity Data Model – LINQ to Entities
Understanding LINQ to Entities
Querying data using LINQ to Entities
Using LINQ to Entities – an example-based approach
Lazy loading and eager loading
Summary
9
Querying the Object Model – Entity SQL
Querying the Object Model – Entity SQL
Understanding Entity SQL
Understanding EntityConnection
Using Entity SQL with EntityCommand
Summary
10
Managing Concurrency Using Entity Framework
Managing Concurrency Using Entity Framework
Understanding concurrency
Implementing optimistic concurrency using Entity Framework
Entity Framework and pessimistic concurrency
Summary
11
Managing Transactions Using Entity Framework
Managing Transactions Using Entity Framework
Understanding transactions
Setting up the test environment
Entity Framework's default transaction handling
Managing transactions using Entity Framework 6
Choosing the appropriate transaction management
Summary
12
Implementing a Small Blogging Platform Using Entity Framework
Implementing a Small Blogging Platform Using Entity Framework
Understanding the application requirements
Visualizing our database design
Creating the Entity Data Model
Performing data access
Using other Entity Framework approaches
Summary
Index
Index

Chapter 1. Introduction to Entity Framework

Entity Framework is an Object Relational Mapper (ORM) from Microsoft that lets the application's developers work with relational data as business models. It eliminates the need for most of the plumbing code that developers write (while using ADO.NET) for data access. Entity Framework provides a comprehensive, model-based system that makes the creation of a data access layer very easy for the developers by freeing them from writing similar data access code for all the domain models. The initial release of Entity Framework was Entity Framework 3.5. It was released with .NET Framework 3.5 SP1 and Visual Studio 2008 SP1. Entity Framework has evolved a lot since then, and the current version is 6.0.

Entity Framework eases the task of creating a data access layer by enabling the access of data, by representing the data as a conceptual model, that is, a set of entities and relationships. The application can perform the basic CRUD (create, read, update, and delete) operations and easily manage one-to-one, one-to-many, and many-to-many relationships between the entities.

Here are a few benefits of using Entity Framework:

  • The development time is reduced since the developers don't have to write all the ADO.NET plumbing code needed for data access

  • We can have all the data access logic written in a higher-level language such as C# rather than writing SQL queries and stored procedures

  • Since the database tables cannot have advanced relationships (inheritance) as the domain entities can, the business model, that is, the conceptual model can be used to suit the application domain using relationships among the entities.

  • The underlying data store can be replaced relatively easily if we use an ORM since all the data access logic is present in our application instead of the data layer. If an ORM is not being used, it would be comparatively difficult to do so.

Let's try to visualize the Entity Framework architecture:

The Entity Framework architecture

From the preceding diagram, we can see that Entity Framework is written on top of the ADO.NET framework, and underneath, it is still using the ADO.NET methods and classes to perform the data operations.

Previous Section
End of Section 1
Next Section