3/6/2021 Tutorial Part 5, apply migrations to the Contoso University sample | Microsoft Docs

Tutorial: Part 5, apply migrations to the

Contoso University sample
11/13/2020 • 6 minutes to read • +7
In this article
Prerequisites
About migrations
Drop the database
Create an initial migration
Examine Up and Down methods
The data model snapshot
Apply the migration
Compare CLI and PMC
Get the code
Next step

In this tutorial, you start using the EF Core migrations feature for managing data model
changes. In later tutorials, you'll add more migrations as you change the data model.

In this tutorial, you:

＂ Learn about migrations

＂ Create an initial migration
＂ Examine Up and Down methods
＂ Learn about the data model snapshot
＂ Apply the migration

Prerequisites
Sorting, filtering, and paging

About migrations
When you develop a new application, your data model changes frequently, and each time
the model changes, it gets out of sync with the database. You started these tutorials by
configuring the Entity Framework to create the database if it doesn't exist. Then each time
you change the data model -- add, remove, or change entity classes or change your
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DbContext class -- you can delete the database and EF creates a new one that matches the
model, and seeds it with test data.

This method of keeping the database in sync with the data model works well until you
deploy the application to production. When the application is running in production it's
usually storing data that you want to keep, and you don't want to lose everything each
time you make a change such as adding a new column. The EF Core Migrations feature
solves this problem by enabling EF to update the database schema instead of creating a
new database.

To work with migrations, you can use the Package Manager Console (PMC) or the CLI.
These tutorials show how to use CLI commands. Information about the PMC is at the end
of this tutorial.

Drop the database

Install EF Core tools as a global tool and delete the database:

.NET Core CLI ＝ Copy

dotnet tool install --global dotnet-ef

dotnet ef database drop

The following section explains how to run CLI commands.

Create an initial migration

Save your changes and build the project. Then open a command window and navigate to
the project folder. Here's a quick way to do that:

In Solution Explorer, right-click the project and choose Open Folder in File Explorer
from the context menu.

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Enter "cmd" in the address bar and press Enter.

Enter the following command in the command window:

.NET Core CLI ＝ Copy

dotnet ef migrations add InitialCreate

In the preceding commands, output similar to the following is displayed:

Console ＝ Copy

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info: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Infrastructure[10403]
Entity Framework Core initialized 'SchoolContext' using provider
'Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer' with options: None
Done. To undo this action, use 'ef migrations remove'

If you see an error message "cannot access the file ... ContosoUniversity.dll because it is
being used by another process.", find the IIS Express icon in the Windows System Tray, and
right-click it, then click ContosoUniversity > Stop Site.

Examine Up and Down methods

When you executed the migrations add command, EF generated the code that will create
the database from scratch. This code is in the Migrations folder, in the file named
<timestamp>_InitialCreate.cs. The Up method of the InitialCreate class creates the
database tables that correspond to the data model entity sets, and the Down method
deletes them, as shown in the following example.

C# ＝ Copy

public partial class InitialCreate : Migration

{
protected override void Up(MigrationBuilder migrationBuilder)
{
migrationBuilder.CreateTable(
name: "Course",
columns: table => new
{
CourseID = table.Column<int>(nullable: false),
Credits = table.Column<int>(nullable: false),
Title = table.Column<string>(nullable: true)
},
constraints: table =>
{
table.PrimaryKey("PK_Course", x => x.CourseID);
});

// Additional code not shown

}

protected override void Down(MigrationBuilder migrationBuilder)

{
migrationBuilder.DropTable(
name: "Enrollment");
// Additional code not shown

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}
}

Migrations calls the Up method to implement the data model changes for a migration.
When you enter a command to roll back the update, Migrations calls the Down method.

This code is for the initial migration that was created when you entered the migrations add
InitialCreate command. The migration name parameter ("InitialCreate" in the example) is
used for the file name and can be whatever you want. It's best to choose a word or phrase
that summarizes what is being done in the migration. For example, you might name a later
migration "AddDepartmentTable".

If you created the initial migration when the database already exists, the database creation
code is generated but it doesn't have to run because the database already matches the
data model. When you deploy the app to another environment where the database doesn't
exist yet, this code will run to create your database, so it's a good idea to test it first. That's
why you changed the name of the database in the connection string earlier -- so that
migrations can create a new one from scratch.

The data model snapshot

Migrations creates a snapshot of the current database schema in
Migrations/SchoolContextModelSnapshot.cs. When you add a migration, EF determines what
changed by comparing the data model to the snapshot file.

Use the dotnet ef migrations remove command to remove a migration. dotnet ef

migrations remove deletes the migration and ensures the snapshot is correctly reset. If
dotnet ef migrations remove fails, use dotnet ef migrations remove -v to get more
information on the failure.

See EF Core Migrations in Team Environments for more information about how the
snapshot file is used.

Apply the migration

In the command window, enter the following command to create the database and tables
in it.

.NET Core CLI ＝ Copy

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dotnet ef database update

The output from the command is similar to the migrations add command, except that you
see logs for the SQL commands that set up the database. Most of the logs are omitted in
the following sample output. If you prefer not to see this level of detail in log messages,
you can change the log level in the appsettings.Development.json file. For more information,
see Logging in .NET Core and ASP.NET Core.

text ＝ Copy

info: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Infrastructure[10403]
Entity Framework Core initialized 'SchoolContext' using provider
'Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer' with options: None
info: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Database.Command[20101]
Executed DbCommand (274ms) [Parameters=[], CommandType='Text',
CommandTimeout='60']
CREATE DATABASE [ContosoUniversity2];
info: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Database.Command[20101]
Executed DbCommand (60ms) [Parameters=[], CommandType='Text',
CommandTimeout='60']
IF SERVERPROPERTY('EngineEdition') <> 5
BEGIN
ALTER DATABASE [ContosoUniversity2] SET READ_COMMITTED_SNAPSHOT ON;
END;
info: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Database.Command[20101]
Executed DbCommand (15ms) [Parameters=[], CommandType='Text',
CommandTimeout='30']
CREATE TABLE [__EFMigrationsHistory] (
[MigrationId] nvarchar(150) NOT NULL,
[ProductVersion] nvarchar(32) NOT NULL,
CONSTRAINT [PK___EFMigrationsHistory] PRIMARY KEY ([MigrationId])
);

<logs omitted for brevity>

info: Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Database.Command[20101]
Executed DbCommand (3ms) [Parameters=[], CommandType='Text',
CommandTimeout='30']
INSERT INTO [__EFMigrationsHistory] ([MigrationId], [ProductVersion])
VALUES (N'20190327172701_InitialCreate', N'5.0-rtm');
Done.

Use SQL Server Object Explorer to inspect the database as you did in the first tutorial.
You'll notice the addition of an __EFMigrationsHistory table that keeps track of which
migrations have been applied to the database. View the data in that table and you'll see

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one row for the first migration. (The last log in the preceding CLI output example shows
the INSERT statement that creates this row.)

Run the application to verify that everything still works the same as before.

Compare CLI and PMC

The EF tooling for managing migrations is available from .NET Core CLI commands or from
PowerShell cmdlets in the Visual Studio Package Manager Console (PMC) window. This
tutorial shows how to use the CLI, but you can use the PMC if you prefer.

The EF commands for the PMC commands are in the

Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools package. This package is included in the
Microsoft.AspNetCore.App metapackage, so you don't need to add a package reference if
your app has a package reference for Microsoft.AspNetCore.App .

Important: This isn't the same package as the one you install for the CLI by editing the
.csproj file. The name of this one ends in Tools , unlike the CLI package name which ends in

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Tools.DotNet .

For more information about the CLI commands, see .NET Core CLI.

For more information about the PMC commands, see Package Manager Console (Visual
Studio).

Get the code

Download or view the completed application.

Next step
Advance to the next tutorial to begin looking at more advanced topics about expanding
the data model. Along the way you'll create and apply additional migrations.

Create and apply additional migrations

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