Using Entity Framework Core with Legacy Databases

Course details

Not every development project starts from scratch. Often, you're rewriting applications to take advantage of different data sources, or to make connections to legacy data in more efficient ways. Entity Framework (EF) Core plays extremely well with existing databases, and it can generate some of the data-access code for you automatically. Using the practical techniques shown in this course, you can use EF Core with existing relational databases, and modify the generated code as necessary. Richard Goforth shows how to connect to a database, scaffold a model from it, and begin improving on that model. He uses shadow properties, concurrency tokens, and other techniques to best map a database to an application. No matter how untidy your tables and fields, EF Core will help you write clean, cross-platform code that is easy to maintain in the long run.

Learning objectives
Setting up your project
Connecting to a legacy database
Scaffolding an initial model and context
Improving the model
Adding concurrency tokens and timestamps
Modeling complex relationships
Working with non-Microsoft databases such as SQLite and PostgreSQL

Concepts

0. Introduction

01 - Welcome to Entity Framework Core
02 - What you need to know
03 - Platforms available to Entity Framework Core
04 - Why Entity Framework Core for an existing database
05 - When Entity Framework Core might not be a good choice
06 - Using the exercise files

1. Get Started with Entity Framework Core (on Your Legacy Database)

07 - Setting up your project
08 - Connecting to the database
09 - Scaffolding an initial model and context
10 - Choose your approach
11 - Understanding the generated context
12 - Migrations against an existing database

2. Improve the Model

13 - Why change the generated model
14 - Changing names
15 - Using shadow properties
16 - Generated properties and default values
17 - Using backing fields
18 - Adding and altering indexes
19 - Adding concurrency tokens and timestamps

3. Model Complex Relationships

20 - Creating an inheritance relationship
21 - Navigation properties
22 - Alternate keys and multicolumn keys
23 - Accessing computed columns
24 - Challenge - Product recall
25 - Solution - Product recall

4. Work with Non-Microsoft Databases

26 - Other database platforms
27 - Create a SQLite database
28 - Populate a SQLite database
29 - PostgreSQL on a Mac
30 - Other options

Conclusion

31 - Next Steps

Using Entity Framework Core with Legacy Databases

Authors

Richard Goforth