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I am working on an asp.net MVC 3 web application and I am using database first, but after I have mapped the DB tables into entity classes using entity framework, I am interacting with these tables as I will be interacting on the code first approach by dealing with Database tables as classes an objects.

So after mapping the tables into entity classes I find that the code first approach and DB first are very similar but except of start writing the entities classes from scratch (as in code first) I have created the entity classes from existing database tables - which is easier and more convenient in my case.

So are there specific cases on which i will not be able to do some functionalities unless i am using one approach over the other which till now i cannot find any?

jrummell
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John John
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2 Answers2

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Having dealt with many many headaches using db-1st EDMX pre EF 4.1, I am partial to code-first. But I'm not going to evangelize it.

In addition to the direct sproc mapping & function import features mentioned in Pawel's answer & comment, you won't be able to change the namespaces or any other code in the generated files when you use db-first. Afaik all of the files are nested under the .tt file. If there is a way to move them into logical folders & namespaces in your project, then I'm not aware of it.

Also if you ever want to separate your DbContext into a separate project from your entities, I recall this was possible pre-EF 4.1. But it was more cumbersome, because you had to run custom tool on both .tt files after each db change. With code-first this is pretty straightforward because you're dealing with pure OOP.

danludwig
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I think that the biggest limitation of CodeFirst (as compared to ModelFirst/DatabaseFirst approaches) is that you cannot map your CUD operations to stored procedures. If you are not planning to do that then you should be good to go. To be more specific - You can invoke stored procedures using SqlQuery method on DbSet which will cause the returned entities to be tracked or more general SqlQuery and ExecuteSqlCommand on Database class (for Database.SqlQuery the returned objects do not have to be entities and there is no tracking for these objects). That's about it. You cannot map Create/Update/Delete operations to stored procedures. FunctionImports are not supported as well

EDIT

It's possible to map CUD operations to stored procedures in EF6 now

Pawel
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  • i am currently doing some of the functionalities by calling stored procedure,, so u mean i will not be able to use stored procedures in the code first approach? – John John Jan 26 '12 at 18:59
  • You can invoke stored procedures using SqlQuery method on DbSet which will cause the returned entities to be tracked or more general SqlQuery and ExecuteSqlCommand on Database class (for Database.SqlQuery the returned objects do not have to be entities and there is no tracking for these objects). That's about it. You cannot map Create/Update/Delete operations to stored procedures. FunctionImports are not supported as well. – Pawel Jan 26 '12 at 22:36
  • Done - I copied the comment to the response. – Pawel Jan 27 '12 at 17:34