Then we need to select the database object for our application. As our database has one table, so we need to select that Employee Table. Provide a meaningful namespace to your EDMX file and finally click on the Finish button as shown in the below image. In this section, we will add data annotations to our model for validation and display purposes. Data Annotations provides a built-in set of validation attributes that you apply declaratively to any class or property.

what is entity framework in mvc

Then provide a meaningful name for the connection string that is going to save in the web.config file. Here, I am naming the connection string as EmployeeDBContext and then click on the Next button as shown in the below image. This website provides tutorials with examples, code snippets, and practical insights, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced developers. This command will create initials for the project inside migration folder. Lastly, let’s change the display format of the Rating field so that it only shows one digit after the decimal separator. Add the following line to the TvShow.cs and build the application.

Entity Framework In MVC – Part One

Entity framework, you can think of it as a way to access the database (in an object-oriented fashion). As I’ve stated before, you can easily use entity framework as the M part of mvc if you need to interact with a database. MVC is an architectural pattern to build applications; entity framework is a object relational mapping framework. In this post, we will write the model classes first and EF Core will create the database. Entity Framework (EF) is an object-relational mapper that enables .NET developers to work with relational data using domain-specific objects. It eliminates the need for most of the data-access code that developers usually need to write.

Learn Entity Framework using simple yet practical examples on EntityFrameworkTutorial.net for free. Learn Entity Framework DB-First, Code-First and EF Core step by step. While using this site, you agree to have read and accepted our terms
of use and privacy policy. The most “student” approach is to study EF first and then mvc, but in this case you won’t see any real result ’till you studied a bit of MVC. Pranaya Rout has published more than 3,000 articles in his 11-year career.

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Now, create a class file with the name Standard.cs and then copy and paste the following code. An ORM Framework like Entity Framework or EF Core can do all of the above for us and saves a lot of time if we provide the required information to the ORM Framework. The ORM Framework sits between our application code and the Database. It eliminates the need for most custom data-access codes we usually write without an ORM. The Add-Migration command generates code to create the initial database schema which is based on the model specified in the TvShowsContext class.

what is entity framework in mvc

In the ASP.NET MVC application, the controller responds to the incoming HTTP request, then gets the data from a model and hands it over to the view. Here, in this article, we are going to discuss how to retrieve the data from the SQL Server Database using the Entity Framework Database First Approach in ASP.NET MVC Application. In our upcoming article, we will discuss using business objects as our model. Entity framework is an object relational mapper which helps you to abstract different types of databases (MSSQL,MySQL etc) and helps querying objects instead of having sql strings in our project.

Adding Data Annotations to the Model

Now we have to add Entity so here I am going to use database first approach when we have an already-existing database then we will prefer the database first approach. So for this right click our solution explorer and go add and select data in left panel and then select ADO.Net Entity Data Model. The main class that coordinates Entity Framework functionality for a given data model is the database context class which allows to query and save data.

  • EF Core continues to support the same features and concepts as EF 6.
  • Here, we will install Entity Framework 6 API using NuGet Package Manager in Visual Studio.
  • This website provides tutorials with examples, code snippets, and practical insights, making it suitable for both beginners and experienced developers.
  • The following figure describes where the Entity Framework present in your application.

That means, in this approach, we need to start coding first in C#.NET or VB.NET and then Entity Framework API will create the database from your code. Entity Framework is an open-source object-relational mapper framework for .NET applications supported by Microsoft. It eliminates the need for most of the data-access code which is used to interact with the database that developers usually need to write. It provides an abstract level to the developers to work with a relational table and columns by using the domain-specific object. It also reduces the code size of the data specific applications and also the readability of the code increases by using it. This is a new technology for accessing the data for Microsoft application.

Controller

The other two approaches are Model First Approach and Database First Approach. Here, in this article, we are going to keep the focus on the Code First Approach of Entity Framework and what is entity framework will learn how to use the Code First approach of Entity Framework to interact with the database. Entity Framework Core uses a provider model to access many different databases.

what is entity framework in mvc

So, in this way, we can work with Entity Framework Code First Approach. Let us understand why we need to use the ORM Framework with an example. Suppose we want to develop an application to manage the students of a college. To do this, we may need to create classes such as Student, Department, Address, etc. Technically, we called these classes Domain classes or business objects.

ASP.NET MVC Entity Framework

As you can see in the above code, the parameterless constructor of our context class calls the DbContext Class constructor and this is required. We have already discussed these things in our EF Basics section. Also, we have included two classes as DbSet properties, and the entity framework going to create two database tables for the above two model classes with the required relationships. This is the beauty of the Entity Framework Code-First Approach. It will automatically create the database based on the parameter passed to the DBContext class constructor from your context class.

As a developer, we mostly work with data-driven applications, and the ORM Framework generates the necessary SQL (to perform the CRUD operation) that the underlying database can understand. So, in simple words, we can say that the ORM Framework eliminates the need for most of the data access code that, as a developer, we generally write. The term ORM stands for Object-Relational Mapper, and it automatically creates classes based on database tables and vice versa is also true. It can also generate the necessary SQL to create the database based on the classes. As per the above figure, Entity Framework fits between the business entities (domain classes) and the database. In this article, I am going to discuss how to use Entity Framework in ASP.NET MVC Application to interact with SQL Server Database to perform the CRUD operation.

Features of Entity Framework

Like the Entity Framework Database First Approach, the Entity Framework Code-First Approach also requires a user-defined context class which should be derived from DbContext class. Let us understand how to use Entity Framework Code First Approach. Let us assume that we are creating a school application for some ABCD School.

what is entity framework in mvc