Question

i need to keep my project flexible to customer specific requirements and need your ideas 🙂
so i have my “default” database layout, on which i have my Entity Framework Model generated.

let’s take this for example:
we have 2 customers, A and B. everyone has their own database server but with the same database layout. Now my application decides on startup (on a given parameter), which customer database it takes, so i instanciate the ObjectContext on the given connection string.

Customer A wants an additional property, “Middle Name” in their employees table.
Customer B doesn’t care about middle names and uses the default layout.

i have no problem to update my EF Model, but then i have an unmapped property, if i choose the customer B database.

my only idea at the moment is to extend the entity object with a partial class. but is it possible at this point to add a property “middle name” and get the value from the database (if the column exists) ?

i would be grateful on any idea or thought.

greets,chris

Answer 1

No it is not possible. You must have model and databases with all properties from all customers. Higher layer of your application has to deal with customer specific requirements and hide unnecessary columns.