When I add a column in the database, under what conditions do I need to update my EDMX? - entity-framework

When I add a column in the database, under what conditions do I need to update my EDMX?
To elaborate:
I know if I add a non-nullable field, I need to update the model if I want to write to the database. What if just I want to read?
What if it's a nullable field? Can I both read and write?
What if I were to change the primary key to the new column but the edmx still has the old column as primary?


1) If you want to port an old database, you need to make sure that every table in your database must have a primary key. This is the only requirement for creating the EDMX.
2) If you've added a column in a table at database side, and have not updated edmx, then you'll simply not be able to use that column though EntityFramework.
If you create a non nullable column with no default value, the insert operation will fail with exception "Cannot insert null into column , statement terminated". And the you'll not be able to read values of that column using entityframeowrk, unless you update the edmx.
3) If you've changed the primary key of any table at database side, and if the edmx is not aware of that, your application might create a runtime exception when performing operations with that table.
Remember, Entity Framework creates SQL queries depending upon its knowledge of database(which is defined in EDMX). So if EDMX is incorrect, the resulting SQL queries so generated might lead to problems at runtime.

Related

EF does not generate every model from database using SQLite

I am trying to change the service based database in my project to SQLite. I am using EF database first approach but the EF does not generate every model from database. Eventhough foreign keys are set it does not generate the connections and also returns an error:
> Error 6005: The data type '' is currently not supported for the target Entity Framework version; the column 'Id' in the table 'main.Comments' was excluded.
It does so with every table that has an Id column (integer, primary key).
How can I fix this?
Thanks

Aliasing table when making relation

I have a table TableWithLongerName which has connection foreign key to TableWithLongName. With Go-Pg I want to retrieve data of TableWithLongerName with data from TableWithLongName embedded to it. But unfortunately TableWithLongName has column VeryLongColumnName.
When I run query.Relation("TableWithLongName") it returns error
can't find column table_with_long_name__very_long_c in Model TableWithLongerName
I have create alias for domain in TableWithLongName but it gets overwritten.

Way to migrate a create table with sequence from postgres to DB2

I need to migrate a DDL from Postgres to DB2, but I need that it works the same as in Postgres. There is a table that generates values from a sequence, but the values can also be explicitly given.
Postgres
create sequence hist_id_seq;
create table benchmarksql.history (
hist_id integer not null default nextval('hist_id_seq') primary key,
h_c_id integer,
h_c_d_id integer,
h_c_w_id integer,
h_d_id integer,
h_w_id integer,
h_date timestamp,
h_amount decimal(6,2),
h_data varchar(24)
);
(Look at the sequence call in the hist_id column to define the value of the primary key)
The business logic inserts into the table by explicitly providing an ID, and in other cases, it leaves the database to choose the number.
If I change this in DB2 to a GENERATED ALWAYS it will throw errors because there are some provided values. On the other side, if I create the table with GENERATED BY DEFAULT, DB2 will throw an error when trying to insert with the same value (SQL0803N), because the "internal sequence" does not take into account the already inserted values, and it does not retry with a next value.
And, I do not want to restart the sequence each time a provided ID was inserted.
This is the problem in BenchmarkSQL when trying to port it to DB2: https://sourceforge.net/projects/benchmarksql/ (File sqlTableCreates)
How can I implement the same database logic in DB2 as it does in Postgres (and apparently in Oracle)?

You're operating under a misconception: that sources external to the db get to dictate its internal keys. Ideally/conceptually, autogenerated ids will never need to be seen outside of the db, as conceptually there should be unique natural keys for export or reporting. Still, there are times when applications will need to manage some ids, often when setting up related entities (eg, JPA seems to want to work this way).
However, if you add an id value that you generated from a different source, the db won't be able to manage it. How could it? It's not efficient - for one thing, attempting to do so would do one of the following
Be unsafe in the face of multiple clients (attempt to add duplicate keys)
Serialize access to the table (for a potentially slow query, too)
(This usually shows up when people attempt something like: SELECT MAX(id) + 1, which would require locking the entire table for thread safety, likely including statements that don't even touch that column. If you try to find any "first-unused" id - trying to fill gaps - this gets more complicated and problematic)
Neither is ideal, so it's best to not have the problem in the first place. This is usually done by having id columns be autogenerated, but (as pointed out earlier) there are situations where we may need to know what the id will be before we insert the row into the table. Fortunately, there's a standard SQL object for this, SEQUENCE. This provides a db-managed, thread-safe, fast way to get ids. It appears that in PostgreSQL you can use sequences in the DEFAULT clause for a column, but DB2 doesn't allow it. If you don't want to specify an id every time (it should be autogenerated some of the time), you'll need another way; this is the perfect time to use a BEFORE INSERT trigger;
CREATE TRIGGER Add_Generated_Id NO CASCADE BEFORE INSERT ON benchmarksql.history
NEW AS Incoming_Entity
FOR EACH ROW
WHEN Incoming_Entity.id IS NULL
SET id = NEXTVAL FOR hist_id_seq
(something like this - not tested. You didn't specify where in the project this would belong)
So, if you then add a row with something like:
INSERT INTO benchmarksql.history (hist_id, h_data) VALUES(null, 'a')
or
INSERT INTO benchmarksql.history (h_data) VALUES('a')
an id will be generated and attached automatically. Note that ALL ids added to the table must come from the given sequence (as #mustaccio pointed out, this appears to be true even in PostgreSQL), or any UNIQUE CONSTRAINT on the column will start throwing duplicate-key errors. So any time your application needs an id before inserting a row in the table, you'll need some form of
SELECT NEXT VALUE FOR hist_id_seq
FROM sysibm.sysdummy1
... and that's it, pretty much. This is completely thread and concurrency safe, will not maintain/require long-term locks, nor require serialized access to the table.

EF many to many with junction entity database first

I have a junction table with and idenity primary key columns to realize a many to many relationship. Visual Studio automatically detects it as a many to many relationship and the junction table is not an entity.
How can i realize it that also this table is generated as an entity? I need this for breeze.js .

You just need to add additional columns (or properties) to that table (or model).
You said that your table has acolumn named ID and it's the primary key withe IsIdentity set to true. It must works, I'm using this approach...
There must be a problem or missing with your table definition. However, if all are OK, just add a nullable column in your table and update your model from database. The problem will go away.

EF db first and table without key

I am trying to use Entity Framework DB first to do quick prototyping of a reporting website for a huge db. The problem is one of the tables doesn't have a key. I got an 'Error 159: EntityType has no key defined'. If I add a key on the model designer, I got 'Error 3024: Must specify mapping for all key properties'. My question is whether there is a way to workaround this WITHOUT adding a key to the table. The table is not in our control.

Huge table which does not have a key? It would not be possible for you or for table owner to search for anything in this table without using full table scan. Also, it is basically impossible to use UPDATE by single row without having primary key.
You really have to either create synthetic key, or ask owner to do that. As a workaround, you might be able to find some existing column (or 2-3 columns) which is unique enough that it can be used as unique key. If it is unique but does not have actual index created, that would be still not good for performance - you should create such index.