I can use LINQ to create a database with some constituent tables using datacontext.createDatabase(). The problem is, each time I want to add a new table to the database and use this method, I have to delete the database first and then recreate the whole database with the additional table. This obviously blanks all the contents I had previously populated the tables with.
Is there a way to simply add the new table into the database without recreating it each time from scratch?
I see two ways to do that
first
you can use the ExceuteCommand -method of the DataContext to run some T-SQL statements for creating tables.
and second
you can use this hack function if you have mapped table type, as suggested here
public void CreateTable(Type linqTableClass)
{
using (var tempDc = new DmsDataContext())
{
var metaTable = tempDc.Mapping.GetTable(linqTableClass);
var typeName = "System.Data.Linq.SqlClient.SqlBuilder";
var type = typeof(DataContext).Assembly.GetType(typeName);
var bf = BindingFlags.Static | BindingFlags.NonPublic | BindingFlags.InvokeMethod;
var sql = type.InvokeMember("GetCreateTableCommand", bf, null, null, new[] { metaTable });
var sqlAsString = sql.ToString();
tempDc.ExecuteCommand(sqlAsString);
}
}
The attached code creates a database, dynamicDatabase11, and a table, books.
public class MyDatabse : DataContext
{
public Table<Bookss> Bookss;
public MyDatabse(string connection) : base(connection) { }
}
[Table(Name = "Books")]
public class Bookss
{
[Column(IsPrimaryKey = true)]
public string Title;
[Column]
public string Rating;
}
class Program
{
static void Main(string[] args)
{
CreateDatabase("DynamicDatabase11");
}
public static void CreateDatabase(string Dbname )
{
MyDatabse db = new MyDatabse("ConString"+Dbname+"");
db.CreateDatabase();
}
}
No, there is no such feature available at this point in time.
Not even in EF4 - at least not now...... these bits here (Code-First Database Evolution) didn't make it into the final EF 4.1 release.... :-(
I hear Microsoft's teams are working hard on a solution (EF "Migrations") - but it's still being worked on
