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Asked: 2026-05-23T10:33:12+00:00

I know that this information is available somewhere but I obviously don’t know how

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I know that this information is available somewhere but I obviously don’t know how to search for it using the right keywords.

I have downloaded the NerdDinner code and also have the e-book. I have followed the example in the book as well though I have not completed it yet. But my question is really very simple.

I want to follow a repository design pattern and I keep seeing “Visual Studio automatically generates .NET classes that represent the models and database relationships defned using the Entity Framework Designer. An ObjectContext class is also generated for each Entity Framework Designer fle added to the solution.” in some phrase or another. But when I create an Entity Framework Project a .designer.cs file is created and basically has all the class entities contained in it which confirms the 2nd portion of the statement. However, I don’t automagically get separate class files generated for those entities.

How do I get that? I know I could comb through the designer file and gut out the class declarations for each entity and create a separate file for each of them but it seems like a trivial way to do it like that. So what is the right way???

Is there a tool or some documentation that I can refer for the proper way to create separate Entity Class files?

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1 Answer

  1. Editorial Team

    It’s been awhile since I last used Entity Framework but:

    • If you use the designer to create your model you can use partial classes in separate files to extend or build upon.

    • There is/was an extension project using Visual Studio that will generate POCO classes based on your EF designer model. You can use those as a one off tool and after that continue working with the resulting classes, you may need to continuously fix your mappings after that point though. Not sure if this POCO template is still current, look for Entity Framework and POCO.

    • MS has been working on better code first support, my preferred way of working. I haven’t looked into it yet, I assume it will try to auto-generate mapping and database based on your classes/entity definitions.

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