Question

Say you send a new app version to customer, and you need to update the local customer database, say its an SQL microsoft database 2008.

• For now i do this by a version table in the database, and run,
  sql scripts. – to match that version, like:

      if (DatabaseVersion < Common_func.ProgramDBFixVersion)
      {
          switch (DatabaseVersion)
          {
              case 0:
                  if (Fix0() == false) NoErrorFixFlg = false;
                  goto case 1;
  
              case 1:
                  if (Fix1() == false) NoErrorFixFlg = false;
                  goto case 2;
                  .  
                  .
                  .
  
  private static bool Fix1()
  {
  
      try
      {
          var conn = new SqlConnection(Utils.ConnectionString);
          conn.Open();
          ExecSql(conn, "ALTER TABLE Customer ADD Is_Deleted [bit] NULL");
          conn.Close();
      }
      catch (Exception ex)
      {
        retrun false;
      }
      return true;
  }
  

This work good, but is there any real built in support to this in the Entity Framework.

without any data loss !

If so – can you give some concrete example how this can be done the right way.

Thank you so much!

Answer 1

Check out migrations: http://blogs.msdn.com/b/adonet/archive/2012/02/09/ef-4-3-code-based-migrations-walkthrough.aspx

When using without automatic updating, each migration / change is created in a file with scripted changes and rollbacks