Question

So I am trying to build Custom membership using EF. I dont really know what i am doing but it has gone fairly smooth so far.

I am on the Database Initializer step where i am trying to dump data into the database soon as the project runs. My class Application.cs uses a GUID as a primary key as seen below. I am trying to figure out how i can add that GUID into the database.

I don’t know if this is possible but this is what i am trying to do. I took the default login’s Database you get when you make a normal web application project in VS 2012 and trying to recreate that database using EF Code First(For practice). This is what i got so far.

Class

public class Applications
        {

                [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
                public Guid ApplicationId { get; set; }

                [StringLength(125)]
                public string ApplicationName { get; set; }

        }

Intializer to dump data into db on build(not including Seed.)

 private static List<Applications> addApplications()
    {
        var apps = new List<Applications>
        {
            new Applications
            {
                ApplicationId = Guid.NewGuid(),
                ApplicationName = "Test Login"

            }
        };

        return apps;
    }
  private static List<Memberships> addMemberships()
    {
        var mem = new List<Memberships>
        {
            new Memberships
            {
                UserId = Guid.NewGuid(),
                ApplicationId = ?, // How can this guid Match the one in  
                                   // in ApplicationId for the Application Table?
            }

        };
        return mem;
    }

I get “Invalid Initializer member declarator”. The problem i face is that I need the GUIDS to be the same for ApplicationId across multiple tables. I don’t even know if this is possible or right?

I got a feeling I have to share it somehow maybe like

   Guid AppId;
        AppId = Guid.NewGuid();

Answer 1

In your Membership model instead of storing the GUID “ApplicationId” to try and reference the application you should use a navigation property like so (see this link for better description of navigation properties):

public class Memberships
{

    [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.Identity)]
    public Guid UserId { get; set; }

    //if you set your model up like this entity framework will take care of creating
    /the foreign key for you.
    public Application MemberApplication { get; set; }

}

then just pass in the appropriate application to your method like so:

private static List<Memberships> addMemberships(Application app)
{
    var mem = new List<Memberships>
    {
        new Memberships
        {
            UserId = Guid.NewGuid(),
            Application = app, 
        }

    };
    return mem;
}

Setting your model up like this lets you take full advantage of oop and relational database. Hope that helps.