Introduction
In my previous post, titled “Using VFP Entity Framework Provider with Free Tables”, I outlined a way of connecting the VFP Entity Framework Provider with Free Tables. The post was really geared towards an “out of the box” experience – said another way it was more specifically an Entity Framework 4.0 way. Although I feel the post is relevant, it really didn’t sit well with me because it is not the way I would have done things. This post will outline another way of connecting Free Table DBFs with the VFP Entity Framework Provider using Code First (or Entity Framework 4.1+).
(This post assumes you’ve already installed the VFP Entity Framework Provider)
Getting Started
Create a console application.
Create the Entities.
- Install the Entity Framework Power Tools
- Use the Power Tools to generate the code first entities.
- You’ll be prompted for the connection information.
- A new Models folder has been added to the project.
Alter the Model
I’ll alter the Blog_Lookups table just list in the last blog post.
Here is the code that was generated:
Using Visual Studio’s refactoring I renamed the class name and some of the properties.
One other thing that needs to be done which I couldn’t do in the last example is set the primary key to the correct column.
* One benefit of the using the Code First approach makes it easier to set the primary key when your table doesn’t include a candidate key.