Home/ Questions/Q 6113409
In Process

The Archive Base Latest Questions

Editorial Team
  • 0
Asked: 2026-05-23T14:51:20+00:00

Has anyone published a generic database initializer capable of taking an XML file (or

  • 0

Has anyone published a generic database initializer capable of taking an XML file (or other file representation) of database contents and using it to initialize a code-first database in the Seed method?

I’m thinking of something that uses Reflection to populate the database. I realize there is a lot of fun to be head with FK relationships, but if such a tool existed, especially if it was bi-directional, it would be very handy. Unfortunately my google-fu is failing me.

Just wanted to make sure I wasn’t missing something…I’ve got an awful lot of init code I could throw away…

Share

Leave an answer

You must login to add an answer.

Need An Account,

1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    Are you talking about the actual data itself? In that case, XML and reflection would be overkill. Just put the data in the DB, and the re-export your INSERT statements:

    What is the best way to auto-generate INSERT statements for a SQL Server table?

    Then, in your Seed methods (or InitializeDatabase()), read in your exported file and use context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand().

    • 0