How to store a complex type with only one value in Entity Framework? - entity-framework

Question

I'm using EF Code First and have an entity which has a Telephone property of type PhoneNumber. The PhoneNumber class has some validation and convenience methods, but essentially holds a string with a correct phone number.
I want to persist this to the database as a simple string. How would I go about this?
Do I need to register some sort of type converter, or do I really need to expose a public property on my PhoneNumber class which is used as complex type (I'd rather not have a public property like this, since I would like PhoneNumber to be immutable).
This is my PhoneNumber class:
public class PhoneNumber {
private string _number;
public PhoneNumber(string number) {
if (!IsValid(number)) {
throw new ArgumentException("Invalid Dutch phone number.");
}
_number = number;
}
private static string Sanitize(string number) {
return number.Trim()
.Replace("-", String.Empty)
.Replace(" ", String.Empty);
}
public bool IsValid() {
return IsValid(this);
}
public static bool IsValid(string number) {
if (number == null) {
return false;
}
var cleanNumber = Sanitize(number);
return Regex.IsMatch(cleanNumber, #"^06\d{8}$");
}
public static implicit operator PhoneNumber(string number) {
return new PhoneNumber(number);
}
public static implicit operator string(PhoneNumber number) {
return number.ToString();
}
}

Answer 1

You will have to add this to your code:
public string Number
{
get { return _number; }
private set { _number = value; }
}
private PhoneNumber() {}
and map your class as complex type:
modelBuilder.ComplexType<PhoneNumber>();