Question

This may be a bit silly, but all the applications I’ve built have always utilized the EF Code-First approach to generate the database. When using this method, I’ve always accessed the database through the Context:

public class RandomController : Controller
{

    public CombosContext db = new CombosContext();

    //
    // GET: /Home/

    public ActionResult Index()
    {
        var rows = db.Combos.OrderBy(a => a.Id).ToList();

However, what if the database is already created for me, OR I create one by adding entities to the schema/design surface and then generate the database from that. How would I access the db without the

public CombosContext db = new ComboxContext();

Answer 1

You can still do this with Code first and is the better approach IMHO. Use the Entity Framework Power Tools to reverse engineer your existing database into a code-first model.

http://visualstudiogallery.msdn.microsoft.com/72a60b14-1581-4b9b-89f2-846072eff19d/

See my demo on using it at:

http://channel9.msdn.com/Events/TechEd/NorthAmerica/2012/DEV215