Question

I use POCO in Entity Framework. Is any direct or indirect way in the latest EF version to get Table name at the runtime to avoid hardcode values?

I need it inside my custom database initializer to run code like this:

context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(
    string.Format("DBCC CHECKIDENT ({0}, RESEED, {1})", tableName, newSeed))

Thanks

Answer 1

I’m working from the assumption that your context looks something like mine, with each of the table names getting generated from the class names when you add a DbSet to your context. If that’s the case, you can achieve your goal with reflection, though it’s a little ugly:

public class MyContext : DbContext
{
    public MyContext() : base("MyDatabase")
    {
    }

    public DbSet<Video> Video { get; set; }
    public DbSet<VideoRating> Rating { get; set; }
    public DbSet<User> User { get; set; }

            protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        modelBuilder.Conventions.Remove<PluralizingTableNameConvention>();
    }

    public class Initializer : IDatabaseInitializer<DashVaultContext>
    {
        public void InitializeDatabase(MyContext context)
        {
            if (!context.Database.Exists())
            {
                context.Database.Create();

                PropertyInfo[] propertyInfos = typeof(MyContext).GetProperties(BindingFlags.DeclaredOnly |
                BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance);

                var newSeed = 1000; // Or whatever is appropriate

                foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in propertyInfos)
                {
                    var tableName = propertyInfo.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments()[0].Name;
                    context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(
                        string.Format("DBCC CHECKIDENT ({0}, RESEED, {1})", tableName, newSeed));
                }
            }
        }
    }
}

UPDATE: I removed the pluralization hack and just turned off pluralization in the generated table names (see the OnModelCreating override).