We're using EF 6, in database-first mode.
We've been building a database migration package, using FluentMigrator, and we've been running our migrations against empty LocalDb databases in our solution, for use in integration testing, etc.
Because we need our solutions to build wherever they're checked out, we've been using |DataDirectory| in the connection strings.
We've written some unit [sic] tests, running against LocalDb instances, running the migrations first to ensure that the tests are running against the current schema. (Yes, these are integration tests, but we're using a unit test framework, and I don't want to argue about it.)
What I would like to do next is to change our configuration so that when we run "Update Model from Database" on our .edmx files, it's the LocalDb instance that the tool looks to. And I can't make that work.
My guess is that whatever tool is running, when we do this, doesn't have it's DataDirectory set where I need it to be, in it's appdomain.
Does anyone know what tool this might be? And how I can configure it to connect to a localdb instance, that's using |DataDirectory| to create a relative path?
Related
I am working on an application that utilizes a database that often has tables added to it or modified. Is there a way I can regenerate the .edmx file as a build step or during compile time to add these new tables/modifications without manually running the wizard?
You can try to run sql scripts to insert/modify tables during build process.
Related extension:
ExecuteSqlScript
Run SQL Server Scripts Task
Or directly use PowerShell to Execute .SQL Files from Directory.
Reference below articles to change the database during build/release:
Build and Release Process for SQL Server Database
Scripts using Online TFS
Continuous Deployment of SQL Server Database Changes using Visual
Studio & TFS Release Manager
UPDATE:
Choosing the Update Model from Database is the best method for updating your EDMX. There are certain properties that don't get updated on the Conceptual layer.
See How do you update an edmx file with database changes?
Seems there isn't a good way to achieve that, however if the actions can be executed in command line, then we can add a step to run the command or script.
Before anyone marks this as a duplicate, none of the questions similar to this addressed any of my concerns or answered any of my questions.
I am currently developing all the POCOs and data contexts in a library project, and running migrations from within this project. The database I'm updating is the development database.
What do I do if I want to create the current schema to a fresh, new database? I figure that all I have to do is to change the connection string in web.config and run Update-Database, correct?
While the live/production database is up and running, I want to add new columns and new tables to the schema, and test it out in development. So I switch back the connection string to the development database's connection string, and run Update-Database.
Going back and forth between two databases seems like I'll get conflicts between _MigrationHistory tables and the auto-generated migration scripts.
Is it safe to manually delete the _MigrationHistory tables in both databases, and/or delete the migration files in /Migrations (so I'll run Add-Migration again)? How do we manage this?
What do I do if I want to create the current schema to a fresh, new database?
- Yes, to create fresh database to the current migration level you simply modify the connection string to point to a database that does not yet exist and run update-database. It will run all the migrations in order.
As far as migrating to the Production database, I am running the update-database command with the -script switch to acquire the raw sql and then applying that script to the production database manually. This is helpful if you need to keep a record of sql commands run against the database as well. Additionally, you can generate the script explicitly from a specific migration to another specific migration via some of the other update-database switches.
Alternatively, you can create an Idempotent script that works from any migration by using the–SourceMigration $InitialDatabase switch and optionally specify an end migration with –TargetMigration
If you delete the _MigrationHistory tables you will have issues where the generated script will be trying to add columns that already exist and such.
You may find the following link helpful:
Microsoft Entity Framework Migrations
I would suggest having a separate trunk in your source code repository - one pointing to production and one to development to avoid risks of switching between the two in visual studio.
Me also had the same problem, even when using one and the same database - due to some merges in the repository, and the mix of automatic/manual migrations. For some reason the EF was not taking into account the target database, and calculating what scripts need to me executed, based on what is already in the database.
To fix this, I go to the [__MigrationHistory] table on the target database and get the latest migration name. This will help EF to determinate the state of the DB, and will execute just the scripts needed.
then the following script is run:
update-database -script -sourcemigration {latest migration name}
This creates update script that is specific to the target database (the connection string should be correct, as discussed in the other comments)
you can also use -force parameter if needed
this way you can update any database to latest version, no mater in what version you found it, if it has MigrationHistory table.
Hope this helps
My production and my developmental database went out of synch and it gave me endless problems. I solved it using a tool from Red-Gate to match up the databases. After using the tool, the databases were exactly the same but my migration was not working and I started to get odd errors i.e. trying to add tables/ columns that already existed etc. I solved that. I just deleted the migration folder on the local, recreated it, added the initial migration, updated the database and then matched the data of this migration file (local) to the one on the host (delete all the data in the migration file on the host, and add the same data that is on the local into the host). A more detailed explanation is at:
migration synch developmental and production databases
In my web.config, I have a connection string set which is different in my web.release.config where it is changed to use our production database using an xdt:transform. The problem is, I have only been running add-migration and update-database on the database contained within web.config. Is there some way I can run update-database when I publish using the release configuration?
To get around this in the short term, I change the connection string contained within web.config to the one contained in web.release.config and then run update-database prior to publishing, but this defeats the purpose of using an xdt:transform?
If you're using the VS Publish Web tool, you can check "Execute Code First Migrations (runs on application start)" in Settings.
If you're deploying to Azure, they can also run migrations on their side, I believe (I remember reading about "new" Azure-specific things regarding this just a couple of months ago, definitely less than a year).
Otherwise, you can always pass arguments to Update-Database to target another database (ConnectionStringName, ConnectionString, ConnectionProviderName), you shouldn't have to fiddle with the Web.config file.
In order to implement run and re-run my integration tests an indefinite number of times, I would like to make use of SSDT in VS2012 to publish to a LOCALDB file instance and run EF against that file during integration tests.
Few notes:
We are using EF Database first
We already have a SSDT project that we will use to deploy to a full
database in our different environments
I know that SSDT uses internally a LOCALDB instance to build/deploy/check for errors, so deploying to another custom localdb seems like it should make sense/be doable
Few questions:
Can I deploy to a specific LOCALDB file with SSDT?
Can I do this from the command line in order to automate it when I run integration tests?
Does this roughly seems like a good idea for integration tests with EF or is there a better way? ;-)
Thank you all
You can change the localdb for SSDT in the Debug options for the project. By default the debug options are set to the (localdb) instance and a DB name that corresponds to the project.
You may have more success with Publish Profiles if you're trying to push the project changes to a DB server. You can use those with SQLPackage to push the changes along with a known set of options to a pre-defined server/database.
You can definitely push the changes through a command line. We're doing it with MSBuild to generate a dacpac file, then SQLPackage to publish the changes from the dacpac to the appropriate server/database.
Can't say for sure on this one. If it works for you, it's likely a good start. We do DB development outside of EF and try to do that first rather than trust EF to generate a good relational model.
I have a handful of blog posts on SSDT SQL Projects at http://schottsql.blogspot.com/search/label/SSDT that might be helpful.
It looks like CodeFirst stops doing its homework when it doesn't have full control of the database (I suppose).
The scenario is a web site hosted on Arvixe.com (or I suppose any other shared hosting server), where I have to create databases only from their control panel (and NOT with Sql Server Management Studio, just to say...).
Once created an empty database, I register a connection in the web site, and I use it to generate database from poco objects like in:
add-migration m1 -targetdatabase myconnection
This generates correctly my FIRST migration, that I can apply without problems with
update-database -targetdatabase myconnection
The first concern, not too important, is that since the database is existing, it will NOT issue the Seed command, so I have to insert my first records by hand, but this is not a great problem.
Then I change my poco objects, and I need to update the database, but when I issue ANOTHER
add-migration m2 -targetdatabase myconnection
it gives the error:
System.Data.Entity.Migrations.MigrationsPendingException: Unable to generate an explicit migration because the following explicit migrations are pending: [201111081426466_m1]. Apply the pending explicit migrations before attempting to generate a new explicit migration.
This is really strange, since if I look at the database, I can see even the table __MigrationHistory, but then it looks like it cannot recognize it...
Anyone with the same problem, or some good tip to where investigate?
Thanks in advance,
Andrea Bioli
I had this problem. I was able to resolve it by providing a connectionString and a connectionProviderName parameter to both the Update-Database and the Add-Migration commands.
If you have many projects in your solution with multiple config files, Package Manager seems to be confused. In my case, I had one project selected as the default project for Package Manager Console, but it was pulling the connection string from the Visual Studio solution default start-up project instead.