Seeding DB made by Code First EF Core DB

Question

Seeding DB made by Code First EF Core DB

c# entity-framework-core

Question

I am wondering what is the best way to generate required data right after EF Core has made the database.

I see that people make classes in the C# code to do it but how about if you got alot of data? For me I got to import all States from the US in my system.

I would think it would be better to run some sort of sql script to do this, but I guess some check would be needed for duplicates.

Edit

Say I want to use these scripts that I found in my database. So when my database is auto generated when my project runs for the first time they get populated.

https://github.com/hiiamrohit/Countries-States-Cities-database

chobo2

Popular Answer

To generate a lot of data, you can use a lib like Bogus which is "is fundamentally a C# port of faker.js and inspired by FluentValidation's syntax sugar". We use it in our project and it fits perfect. You can generate real name, real countries, real phone numbers etc. An example from GitHub:

var testUsers = new Faker<User>()
    .CustomInstantiator(f => new User(userIds++, f.Random.Replace("###-##-####")))
    .RuleFor(u => u.Gender, f => f.PickRandom<Gender>())
    .RuleFor(u => u.FirstName, (f, u) => f.Name.FirstName(u.Gender))
    .RuleFor(u => u.LastName, (f, u) => f.Name.LastName(u.Gender))
    .RuleFor(u => u.Avatar, f => f.Internet.Avatar())
    .RuleFor(u => u.UserName, (f, u) => f.Internet.UserName(u.FirstName, u.LastName))
    .RuleFor(u => u.Email, (f, u) => f.Internet.Email(u.FirstName, u.LastName))
    .RuleFor(u => u.SomethingUnique, f => $"Value {f.UniqueIndex}")
    .RuleFor(u => u.CartId, f => Guid.NewGuid())
    .RuleFor(u => u.FullName, (f, u) => u.FirstName + " " + u.LastName)
    .RuleFor(u => u.Orders, f => testOrders.Generate(3).ToList())
    .FinishWith((f, u) =>
        {
            Console.WriteLine("User Created! Id={0}", u.Id);
        });

var user = testUsers.Generate(10000); // Generated 10000 users that match rules

Jonatan Dragon

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Jason H · Accepted Answer · 6/15/2018 9:47:03 PM

If you are using EF Core 2.1 they have actually added a new feature that is very nice.

EF Core 2.1 Release Announcement

In your OnModelCreating method of your DbContext you now have an HasData extension method on the Entity method.

Here are two examples:

modelBuilder.Entity<Blog>().HasData(new Blog {BlogId = 1, Url = "http://sample.com"});

modelBuilder.Entity<Post>().HasData(
    new {BlogId = 1, PostId = 1, Title = "First post", Content = "Test 1"},
    new {BlogId = 1, PostId = 2, Title = "Second post", Content = "Test 2"});

Seeding DB made by Code First EF Core DB

Question

Fastest Entity Framework Extensions

Accepted Answer

Popular Answer

Performance

Expression Evaluator

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