Why am I getting an extra foreign key column with Entity Framework Code First Foreign Key Attributes? - entity-framework

Question

I recently came across this strange problem with Entity Framework Code First.
My class looks like this
public class Status
{
[Key]
public int StatusID { get; set; }
public string Name { get; set; }
public int MemberID { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("MemberID")]
public virtual Member Member { get; set; }
public int PosterID { get; set; }
[ForeignKey("PosterID")]
public virtual Member Poster { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<StatusLike> StatusLikes { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<StatusComment> StatusComments { get; set; }
}
My Member class looks like this
public class Member
{
[Key]
public int MemberID { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string Bio { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<MemberCourseTaken> MemberCourseTakens { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Status> Statuses { get; set; }
public virtual ICollection<Club> FoundedClubs { get; set; }
public string EmailAddress { get; set; }
public string Password { get; set; }
public string Phone { get; set; }
public int AccountSourceID { get; set; }
public AccountSource AccountSource { get; set; }
public int AddressID { get; set; }
public Address Address { get; set; }
public string ProfilePhoto { get; set; }
public int MemberRankID { get; set; }
public MemberRank MemberRank { get; set; }
public DateTime Created { get; set; }
public DateTime Modified { get; set; }
}
And for whatever reason the database table that is created has the following columns
StatusID
Name
MemberID
PosterID
Member_MemberID
with MemberID, PosterID, and Member_MemberID being foreign keys.
How can I keep Member_MemberID from being generated?

Answer 1

Your Member_MemberID column is created because of the Member.Statuses property. I can imagine that this is not what you want. Probably members and statuses should exist independent of each other, so you need a junction table.
I don't know if you already use the OnModelCreating override of the DbContext, but that's the place to change the mapping between Member and Status:
protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder mb)
{
mb.Entity<Member>().HasMany(m => m.Statuses).WithMany();
}
This will create a table MemberStatuses table with the two Id columns as foreign keys. This is a way to model a many-to-many relationship without a navigation property on the "other" side of the association. (I don't think you want a Members property in Status).

Answer 2

I've seen this before. In my case (Using EF 6.1), it was because my Fluent API Mapping was set up like so:
// In my EntityTypeConfiguration<Status>
HasRequired(x => x.Member).WithMany().HasForeignKey(x => x.MemberID);
That code works perfectly fine, but it doesn't tell EF that my Member class's Collection Navigational Property Status ha been taken into account. So, while I explicitly handled the existence of a Member Navigational Property in my Status Class, I now left an orphaned related collection property. That orphaned property, being a collection, tells EF that my Status class needs to have a Foreign Key to it. So it creates that on the Status Class.
To fix it, I had to be 100% explicit.
HasRequired(x => x.Member).WithMany(x => x.Statuses).HasForeignKey(x => x.MemberID)
It could bee that your Statuses Collection property in Member needs an attribute telling it that it is already considered, and not to go auto-creating mappings. I don't know that attribute.