I have an edmx file and I changed a table in my database. I know that there is an "Update Model from database" wizard, however in many cases this is useless.
For example if I change a field from non null to nullable or if I remove fields the update model does not reflect the changes. I have had to remove the entity and add it back in to get the changes to appear in my model.
Per the following question:
How do I propagate database changes to my .edmx file?
One of the answers seems to say the same thing, that you need to remove the entity and add it back in.
Is this the definitive answer or is there a better way to do this?
Best Answer
Updating an EDMX the safe way:
As you have found, the update from database does not always change existing properties correctly.
From our day-to-day use of EDMX updating (100s of updates over 24 months), I would recommend the following sequence for updating an EDMX.
Delete existing model and then update:
This will obviously lose any manual tweaks you have made to the model, but manual tweaks are to be avoided if possible. This makes the entire process reproducible at any time (which is a good thing).
Important notes:
Additional Recommendation:
Keep your EDMX in a separate library. This also becomes a great place to add additional TT files and partial classes (e.g. to extend function of EDMX models). I also place any extension methods for the database context in this library. The
migration
files get generated in the library too keeping it all nicely contained.Update April 2015
The latest Release 4 of Visual Studio 2013 appears to have resolved a lot of the TFS issues. We now see Visual Studio checkout generated files, then revert them if they are unchanged. The above steps still appear to be the safest approach.
Update September 2015
Using latest VS2013 Release 5, we still have issues if a save occurs during EDMX update. You can still wind up in a state where pending deletes causes your
tt
files to be removed from source control during the update. The secret is to update fast between steps 4 and 5! :)