Question

I am following the ASP MVC 3 music store tutorial–translating the C# into VB.
http://www.asp.net/mvc/tutorials/mvc-music-store/mvc-music-store-part-4

I have a class called SampleData that is supposed to hold the data for the application. It looks like this:

 Public Class SampleData
        Inherits DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges(Of MusicStoreEntities)

        Protected Overrides Sub Seed(context As MusicStoreEntities)
            Dim genres As Genre() = { _
                New Genre() With {.name = "Rock"},
                New Genre() With {.name = "Jazz"},
               ... more genres...
             }

I have a class called MusicStoreEntities that inherits from DbContext like this:

Public Class MusicStoreEntities
    Inherits DbContext

    Property albums As DbSet(Of Album)
    Property genres As DbSet(Of Genre)

My controller is supposed to return a view that lists the genres but the list of genres is empty.

    ' GET: /Store
    Dim storeDB As MusicStoreEntities = New MusicStoreEntities()

    Function Index() As ActionResult
        Dim genres As List(Of Genre) = storeDB.genres.ToList
        Return View(genres)
    End Function

I am also calling my seed in Application_start, located in global.asax

Sub Application_Start()
    System.Data.Entity.Database.SetInitializer(
           New MvcMusicStore.Models.SampleData())

Basically, I should see all of the genres but don’t.

I have no idea how to go about debugging. Where do I start?

Answer 1

Are you calling your seed in your Application_start, located in global.asax?

I don’t know vb but here’s the c#:

protected void Application_Start() {
    Database.SetInitializer(new SampleData());
}

Altering DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges to DropCreateDatabaseAlways could also help, it will force your database to drop and reseed every time the program is run.