Mapping tables in Entity Framework

Question

I performed the following task at the below link provided which worked fine for me using Entity Framework 5.0 with Visual Studio 2010.

http://blogs.msdn.com/b/simonince/archive/2009/03/23/mapping-two-tables-to-one-entity-in-the-entity-framework.aspx

However, if the database schema needs to be refreshed, how do you prevent the changes you made to the designer from getting lost and doing them all over again?

This is not going to be pretty for a database that has lots of tables....

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Bill Yeager

Answer 1

Hi Bill,

Welcome to the MSDN forum.

I think you are using database approach. I tested the sample based on the article you provided. I tried to refresh Customer and CustomerAddress tables. The changes is preserved. Please back up your solution and try to refresh it.

Best Regards,

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Alexander Sun [MSFT]
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Answer 2

Hi Bill,

Is what Alexander said working for you? If so then I'll mark this one as done, otherwise I'll look into it for you.

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Answer 3

That worked, but if I need to regenerate my database model from my physical database, the changes I made would be lost....

As a matter of fact, any changes that you make to the model would be lost if you have to regenerate it. I love EF, but this is an issue which I'm sure why a lot of companies don't use it. One little change to the database could throw your whole model off....

How can I prevent this?

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Bill Yeager