Question

I am trying to add an entity to the DB. Once I have added it, I want to detach it, so I can manipulate the object safely without making any changes to the DB. After calling context.SaveChanges() I do the following to detach the entity:

    // save
    context.Stories.Add(story);

    // attach tags. They already exists in the database    
    foreach(var tag in story.Tags)
      context.Entry(tag).State = System.Data.EntityState.Unchanged;

    context.SaveChanges();

    context.Entry(story).State = System.Data.EntityState.Detached;

However, changing the entity state to DETACHED will remove all related entities associated with the my entity. Is there a way to stop this ?

If I don’t detach the entity, all my changes are sent to the DB next time I call context.SaveChanges()

Thanks!!

Answer 1

There is no way. It is limitation of EF. Your options are:

• Not using the same context for another save (single context instance = single save)
• Retrieve the entity from database again using another context instance which will not be used for saving
• Create deep clone of your entity and use the clonned one (deep clone is done by serialization and immediate deserialization = your entity graph must be serializable)