Question

Is there a standard way to using Enums in EF code-first? There seems to be some examples making use of a wrapper class for the enum.

However, I would like to be able to define the enum and have the enum values also seeded into the database using the database initializer. There doesn’t seem to be much point in defining the enum and creating a wrapper, if I then have to seed the database table manually from the enum.

Answer 1

Now supported : http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2011/06/30/announcing-the-microsoft-entity-framework-june-2011-ctp.aspx

The Microsoft Entity Framework June 2011 CTP introduces both new runtime and design-time features. Here are some of the new runtime features:

• The Enum data-type is now available in the Entity Framework. You can use either the Entity Designer within Visual Studio to model entities that have Enum properties, or use the Code First workflow to define entities that have Enum objects as properties. You can use your Enum property just like any other scalar property, such as in LINQ queries and updates…

There are several new features for the Entity Framework Designer within Visual Studio:

• The Entity Designer now supports creation of Enums, spatial data-types and table-value functions from the designer surface…