How to access navigation property of deleted entity

In this post I am going to show you a small Entity Framework code first trick. When you remove an entity from the context its state is set to Deleted and all its navigation properties are nulled. This is done by DbContext internally. However you might want to know what was the related entities (navigation properties) before the entity was deleted. For instance you want to create some audit logs of deleted entity. I will show you how to do it with minimal effort.

By Mirek on 5/29/2015 (tags: Code First, Entity Framework, navigation property, categories: code)

Concurrency handling in Entity Framework

In this post I am going to present my solution for handling optimistic concurrency scenarios in Entity Framework. This solution is somehow an extension of recommended approaches presented on MSDN Entity Framework learning center here.

By Mirek on 4/22/2015 (tags: database concurrency, Entity Framework, categories: code)

Sql Server application roles with Entity Framework Code First Migrations

A time ago I have been writing about the Sql Server application roles, what are the benefits of using them and what are the limitations when we want to incorporate the Entity Framework to use application role. Today I will show you how to workaround those limitations with new Entity Framework facility introduced in version 6 of the framework.

By Mirek on 2/6/2015 (tags: Application Role, Entity Framework, SQL Server, categories: architecture, code)

A confusing connection problem using Entity framework and Migrations

Recently I have stumbled upon a strange exception that raised in my application. It has led to an exception with a confusing message “Could not determine storage version; a valid storage connection or a version hint is required.” Thankfully I have solved this issue finally.

By Mirek on 1/28/2015 (tags: EF, migrations, categories: code)

Wix Toolset – custom action to preserve connection string on upgrade

In my previous post I showed you a standard template of WiX installer. Today you will see how to add a custom action to the installer so you can perform more customized operations during the application installation process.

By Mirek on 12/24/2014 (tags: Installer, WiX, categories: code)

WiX based Installer– Boilerplate

WiX Toolset is a technology to create Windows installers for your software. It is open source and free for use, but as many of free things is not super user friendly. The creation of the installer is XML based. In this post I will try to present a kind of boilerplate template which you can use to quickly create most of the need installer.

By Mirek on 12/19/2014 (tags: Installer, WiX, categories: tools)

Learning SQL Server Reporting Services

If you are looking for a good starting point to learn SQL Server reporting services I have two links for you.

By Mirek on 11/28/2014 (tags: SSRS, categories: tools)

Autofac and MEF integration

A time ago I have presented a way of implementing wpf plugins with use of Managed Extensibility Framework. Today I will show you how to integrate your MEF exports with Autofac dependency container.

By Mirek on 11/14/2014 (tags: Autofac, MEF, Plugins, categories: architecture)

Version tolerant XML Serialization

One of the beauties of xml, is that it can be extended without breaking applications. You can add element to the xml document tree and the application should not crash or fail while consuming this xml. This is what we can read on the w3schools.com xml tutorial. But how is this with serialization of the xml?

By Mirek on 11/3/2014 (tags: Version Tolerant Serialization, XML, categories: architecture, code)

Mapping XML column with XSD schema validation in EF Code First

The XML data type allows storing a xml content in our SQL Server database. The great feature is that we can also attach an XSD schema to it and have the xml content automatically validated. Here I am going to show you how to set it up together with Entity Framework Code First.

By Mirek on 10/29/2014 (tags: Entity Framework, SQL Server, XML, XSD, categories: architecture, code)