Thoughts and ideas about things that I find interesting 

A Code First Example using Entity Framework 4

Here is a step by step Code First example using Entity Framework 4.

Firstly, make sure that the target framework of your project is set to .Net Framework 4:

Secondly, add a reference to Entity Framework in your project:

You can download the latest Entity Framework here: http://www.microsoft.com/download/en/details.aspx?displaylang=en&id=8363

Next, create some business classes. For this example I’m using Categories and Articles:

Article.cs

namespace CodeFirstExample
{
   class Article
   {
      public long Id { get; set; }
      public string Title { get; set; }
      public string Content { get; set; }
   }
}

Category.cs

using System.Collections.Generic;

namespace CodeFirstExample
{
   class Category
   {
      public long Id { get; set; }
      public string Name { get; set; }
      public string Blurb { get; set; }
      public ICollection<Article> Articles { get; set; }
      public ICollection<Category> SubCategories { get; set; }
   }
}

Then you need to create a DB context class:

MyDbContext.cs

using System.Data.Entity;

namespace CodeFirstExample
{
   class MyDbContext : DbContext
   {
      public DbSet<Article> Articles { get; set; }
      public DbSet<Category> Categories { get; set; }
   }
}

So now that we have that, here’s an example that will create your database and populate it with some data:

MyDbContext myDbContext = new MyDbContext();
myDbContext.Database.Connection.ConnectionString = “Data Source=localhost; Initial Catalog=Foo; Integrated Security=True;”;

new CreateDatabaseIfNotExists().InitializeDatabase(myDbContext);

Article articleAboutCats = new Article()
{
   Title = “Cats”,
   Content = “Something about cats.”
};

Article articleAboutDogs = new Article()
{
   Title = “Dogs”,
   Content = “Something about dogs.”
};

Article articleAboutElephants = new Article()
{
   Title = “Elephants”,
   Content = “Something about elephants.”
};

Category categoryForPets = new Category()
{
   Name = “Pets”,
   Blurb = “Animals you can keep as pets”,
   Articles = new List<Article>() { articleAboutCats, articleAboutDogs }
};

Category categoryForAnimals = new Category()
{
   Name = “Animals”,
   Blurb = “Here are some animals”,
   Articles = new List<Article>() { articleAboutElephants },
   SubCategories = new List<Category>() { categoryForPets }
};

myDbContext.Categories.Add(categoryForAnimals);
myDbContext.SaveChanges();

You will find that the following database has been created for you:

… And that the tables have been populated:

Articles

Categories