Part 6 How to seed database with test data using entity framework04:33

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Published on September 2, 2017

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So far in this video series, we have been manually populating the database with test data using the insert sql script. Entity Framework can automate this. We will be working with the example we worked with in Part 5. Here are the steps.

Step 1: Right click on the project in solution explorer and add a class file with name = EmployeeDBContextSeeder.cs

Step 2: Copy and paste the following code in EmployeeDBContextSeeder.cs file
using System.Collections.Generic;
using System.Data.Entity;

namespace Demo
{
public class EmployeeDBContextSeeder : DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges[EmployeeDBContext]
{
protected override void Seed(EmployeeDBContext context)
{
Department department1 = new Department()
{
Name = “IT”,
Location = “New York”,
Employees = new List[Employee]()
{
new Employee()
{
FirstName = “Mark”,
LastName = “Hastings”,
Gender = “Male”,
Salary = 60000,
JobTitle = “Developer”
},
new Employee()
{
FirstName = “Ben”,
LastName = “Hoskins”,
Gender = “Male”,
Salary = 70000,
JobTitle = “Sr. Developer”
},
}
};

Department department2 = new Department()
{
Name = “HR”,
Location = “London”,
Employees = new List[Employee]()
{
new Employee()
{
FirstName = “Philip”,
LastName = “Hastings”,
Gender = “Male”,
Salary = 45000,
JobTitle = “Recruiter”
},
}
};
Department department3 = new Department()
{
Name = “Payroll”,
Location = “Sydney”,
Employees = new List[Employee]()
{
new Employee()
{
FirstName = “Steve”,
LastName = “Pound”,
Gender = “Male”,
Salary = 45000,
JobTitle = “Sr. Payroll Admin”,
},
}
};

context.Departments.Add(department1);
context.Departments.Add(department2);
context.Departments.Add(department3);

base.Seed(context);
}
}
}

Step 3: Copy and paste the following line in Application_Start() method Global.asax file
Database.SetInitializer(new EmployeeDBContextSeeder());

Step 4: Remove the following Table and Column attributes from Employee.cs file.
[Table(“tblEmployees”)]
[Column(“First_Name”)]

At this point Employee class should look as shown below.
public class Employee
{
public int Id { get; set; }
public string FirstName { get; set; }
public string LastName { get; set; }
public string Gender { get; set; }
public int Salary { get; set; }
public int DepartmentId { get; set; }
[ForeignKey(“DepartmentId”)]
public Department Department { get; set; }
public string JobTitle { get; set; }
}

Step 5: Run the application and notice that the Sample database, Departments and Employees tables are created and populated with test data automatically.

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