Accessing Custom Properties from the CSDL Conceptual section of an EDMX within a T4 Template

Question

I have custom properties withing the CSDL section of the EDMX so as to control the operation of a T4 Template.
But how do I access them in the T4 Template?

Does the API from EF.Utility.CS.ttinclude  help me?

I can write,

	string inputFile = @"Model1.edmx";
	EdmItemCollection ItemCollection = loader.CreateEdmItemCollection(inputFile);
	var abc = ItemCollection.GetItems<??Something??>().ToList();

but I don't know whether the custom properties are present in the EdmItemCollection?
Somehow I need to access the Schema, and then I could access the individual Xelements.
But re-parsing the EDMX file for this seems wasteful, and was looking for a better way.

<edmx:ConceptualModels>
<Schema Namespace="Database1Model">
stuff removed for clarity
<a:CslaUseDbContext xmlns:a="http://schemas.tempuri.com/CslaDesignerExtension">Yes</a:CslaUseDbContext>
</Schema>
</edmx:ConceptualModels>
thanks

Answer 1

Hi Jrad,

Welcome to the MSDN forum.

I am trying to involve a senior expert into your thread. Please wait for the response. Sorry for any inconvenience.

Best Regards,

---

Alexander Sun [MSFT]
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Answer 2

Hi Jrad,

If you are able to express your custom properties as XML attributes rather than elements, then EF will parse those into the MetadataProperties collection on the corresponding metadata item. For example, you could add a custom attribute to the EntityContainer element in XML, then retrieve the EntityContainer metadata item using ItemCollection as you show above.

Cheers,

Andrew.