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The process of defining your model and connecting to a database—either existing or new—is referred to as a "workflow". Let's start with an overview of the Database First workflow.
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To get started with using entity
framework, you need to do two things.
0:00
Describe the shape of your data,
and connect to a database.
0:04
Describing the shape of the data is
often referred to as data modeling.
0:08
When data modeling, you define the
entities, properties on those entities,
0:13
and the relationships between entities.
0:18
For example, in our fitness frog web app
from an earlier course, we modeled workout
0:20
data using classes that stored
things like the type of activity and
0:25
how long it lasted.
0:30
The data model in EF terminology is
known as, the entity data model,
0:32
or EDM, or just the model.
0:38
EF provides a visual designer
that allows you to visualize and
0:41
in some cases edit your model.
0:46
We'll see the designer in just a moment.
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If you have an existing database,
0:51
you can use it as a starting
point when defining your model.
0:53
If you don't have a database,
you can use EF to generate the database.
0:57
The process of defining your model and
1:01
connect it to a database either existing
or new is referred to as a workflow.
1:03
EF supports three workflows,
Database First, when
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you want to generate your model and entity classes from an existing database.
1:13
Model First when you don't
have an existing database and
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you want to define your model
using the visual designer and
1:22
allow EF to generate your entity classes and database.
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And Code First which
forgoes the visual designer
1:30
by allowing you to define your model by
writing the code for your entity classes.
1:34
In this course will be using the most
popular of these three options,
1:39
the code first workflow.
1:43
But let's start with an overview of the
database first and model first workflows
1:45
so you'll understand at a high level
how they compare to each other and
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to the code first workflow.
1:55
Database First workflow was originally
the only workflow that EF supported.
1:57
As some name suggests this workflow
starts with an existing database.
2:02
After connecting to the database EF
generates the model from the database.
2:08
Then the entity and context classes
are generated from the model.
2:13
With the Database First workflow,
2:18
changes that need to be made to
the model start in the database
2:20
by making schema changes and flow to the application's entity data model.
2:23
This means that the model from the
application side is effectively read only.
2:29
I'm going to walk through
the steps of creating a model
2:36
using the database first workflow.
2:39
This will be a quick overview.
2:41
So don't worry if you see something
that doesn't make complete sense.
2:43
After the next video, we'll be
focusing on the Code First workflow
2:47
which I'll explain in detail
throughout this course.
2:51
To get started with this workflow, we add
in Ado.net into enity data model item
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to our project which will drop us
into the Enity Data Model wizard.
2:59
To start, we're asked what the model
should contain and were presented with
3:04
four options Entity Designer from
database, Empty EF Designer Model,
3:08
Empty Code First model and
Code First from database.
3:14
The last two options are for
3:19
the code first workflow which we'll
discuss later in the section.
3:21
The second option is for
3:25
the model first workflow which we'll
take a look at in the next video.
3:27
And the first option is for
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the database first workflow which is
the one that we want for this video.
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The second step allows us to
choose our data connection.
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I don't have any existing data connections
so I'll create a new connection.
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First, I need to provide the name for
my database server.
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I'm using SQL Server local DB, so
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my database server name
will start with (localDB),
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followed by a backslash,
followed by MSSQLLocalDB.
4:01
In the next section, we'll be taking
a closer look at how to install,
4:08
configure and use SQL Server Local DB.
4:12
Now I'll select the database
that I want to use.
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DatabaseFirstTestDB, and click OK.
4:21
Now that we've defined our
data connection, click Next.
4:28
In the last step, we can select the
database objects to include in our model.
4:34
I'll click on the box to the left of the
tables item to select all the database's
4:39
tables.
4:43
Click Finish to complete the wizard.
4:44
Now we have an EDMX file in our project.
4:51
Underneath EDMX file we have
to code generation templates
4:55
one used to automatically
generate the code for
5:00
the indie classes and another to
generate the code for the context class.
5:03
We'll take a closer look at the entity and
context classes later in the section.
5:08
Code generation templates contain code
that generates or writes other code.
5:12
Using code generation to automate the
creation of our entity in context classes
5:18
saves us the manual effort
creating those classes ourselves.
5:22
When the database schema is updated
we can regenerate the EDMX file.
5:26
We can do this by right clicking anywhere
in the empty space in the designer and
5:31
selecting update model from database.
5:35
This opens a dialog that will show us
a list of the database objects that we can
5:39
add along with the objects that
need to be refreshed or deleted.
5:43
Because the database first workflow
requires you to start with an existing
5:49
database.
5:53
It's a natural fit when you're updating
an existing application to use EF.
5:54
For new applications development
developers like having the option to start
5:59
with defining their model
from within the application.
6:02
The model first workflow was created for
this purpose.
6:06
Up next we'll see how we can use the model
first workflow to not only generate
6:10
the entity and context classes from
the model but also the database.
6:14
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