Question

I am creating an asp.net mvc4 site using entity framework 5 with codefirst and sql server express 2012.

I have enabled migrations and now do this in my Configuration.Seed method:
(note that I want to set the primary key to 8 even though this is the first record in the database).

context.ProductCategoryDtoes.AddOrUpdate(x => x.Id,
    new ProductCategoryDto() { Id = 8, Name = "category1" }
);

My Model object is defined like this:

[Table("ProductCategory")]
public class ProductCategoryDto {
    public long Id { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

This results in a table in (SQL SERVER EXPRESS 2012) where the Id column has Identity = true, Identity seed = 1, identity increment = 1.

Now when I run migrations by doing an PM> Update-Database this result in a row with Id = 1.

So my question are:

1) How can I control the values of auto incremented primary keys when seeding data.

2) If the solution is to increment the key columns seed value, then how is this to be done when I am using Database.SetInitializer(new DropCreateDatabaseAlways<MyContext>());. This will nuke and rebuild the database everytime I update the database, so how would the seed value be updated in the fresh database?

Answer 1

Just create dummy entities with default values, then add your real data and afterwards delete the dummies. Not the best way but I guess there is no other…