Chapter 8. Using DbContext in Advanced Scenarios
The focus of this book so far has been to get you up and running with
using the DbContext
, along with its
partner APIs—Validation and Change Tracking. Now it’s time to look at some
advanced and less commonly used features of DbContext
, the DbSet
and the Database
classes,
as well as moving between a DbContext
and
ObjectContext
. Even though this book is
not an application patterns book, we will also take a look at two
interesting application scenarios. One will be a discussion of defining your
DbContext
and taking into consideration
the use of multiple contexts in your application to target only the sets of
model classes that are needed in any given scenario. The other will be a
look at leveraging the IDbSet
to create
abstractions that will allow you to build more flexible applications. In
Programming
Entity Framework, 2e, you’ll find an
extensive sample that uses ObjectSet
,
automated unit testing, and repositories. This IDbSet
example will be a slice of that, explaining
how you can replicate the pattern using the DbContext API.
Moving Between ObjectContext and DbContext
As you’ve learned, the DbContext
is a smaller API exposing the most commonly used features of the ObjectContext
. In some cases, those features are
mirrored in the DbContext API. In other cases, the Entity Framework team
has simplified more complex coding by providing us with methods like
Find
or properties like DbSet.Local
. But there’s a big API lurking underneath that ...
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