Ef core store enum as string. 1 to Entity Framework Core 6.

Ef core store enum as string. I personally avoid enums anymore in my code. Plus this also makes it easier to know what that enum Oct 23, 2016 · I would go with dynamic expression. This is because I don't like having enum columns in database without meaningful value. How can I store string value of enum in SQL instead of numeric value? public class Student { public int Id { get; set; } public string FullName { get; set; } public UserTypeEnum Type { get; set; } public List<int> CourseIds { get; set; } } public enum UserTypeEnum { Bachelor = 10, Master = 11, PhD = 12 } By default, EntityFrameworkCore seems to store enum as int instead of string. Int16, Edm. HasConversion<string>(); Jun 3, 2021 · I have . Feb 11, 2021 · When I try to cast to string or run . I think it can be done with attributes but I don't understand how to do it. I cover the support of Enums in Entity Framework Core as an integer, string value, Primary Key and Foreign key. If your column is char(1) or nchar(1) in SQL Server, E. Property(x => x. query. NET Framework ≥4. F. UPDATE FOR EF CORE 8. you want many user roles or wine variants and work with enums moreover, you can't store it as a flag because you need to know about the roles/privileges without source code(on db side). This option, unique to PostgreSQL, provides the best of both Mar 18, 2013 · AutoMapper allows you to configure how ViewModels can be mapped to Entities, if some properties should change, from integer entities to string values for view models, maybe you want an enum to really be a string in the "view" and only the enum for the db, with auto mapper it allows you to configure all these scenarious, and through convention Jun 9, 2022 · No wonder, the resulting string contains the enum properties (BackColor, Medium, Pen. Define an attribute class which will contain the string value for enum. To store Enum as String, use Global Configurations in Entity Framework Core using Fluent API: In this article, I will discuss How to Implement Global Configurations in Entity Framework Core (EF Core) using Fluent API with Examples. Where(d => d. I need to store an enum in the database as string rather than integer. NET Core (targeting . Builders. Int32 being the default underlying type if none has been specified. That maps to a separate list of ints for each MyObject. Now I need such migration that will change the enum into flags, so I need to change enum integer value in C#. This option, unique to PostgreSQL, provides the best of both Oct 13, 2024 · By default, EF Core will store the enum as an integer, but not very human-friendly if you ever need to look at the data directly. From a database point of view, this is wrong. e. However, the Npgsql provider also allows you to map your CLR enums to database enum types. Int (db type is smallint): public override void Configure(EntityTypeBuilder<MyEfEntity> b) { b. Properties<Enum>(). I store enums with their string representations unless storage is a consideration, then I'll use the numeric form. I want to configure EF Core to serialize the Competence property as a string in Cosmos DB, but I am encountering issues with the proposed solutions I've tried so far. Read here about Primitive Collections. Jan 12, 2023 · EF Core keeps track of how every piece of configuration was made. Jan 1, 2016 · Excellent @AlbertoMonterio! To get this to work with ASP. ) Aug 30, 2016 · Unfortunately, this is one of the many shortfalls of Entity Framework. Conversion between enum and int is for free (Probably entity framework is able to do it for you!?) Oct 1, 2016 · Your enumeration is based on an integral value and EF will create an int column behind the scene to store the value of the enum. It also enforces only valid values are entered. NET enumerations as their underlying integer values for SQL databases, primarily for performance and storage optimization reasons. Jul 8, 2021 · If we decide to store enum names as strings, every character would take some bytes depending upon encoding used by database to store the data. So, let’s tell EF Core to store the enum as a string, making Jan 11, 2024 · By default, Entity Framework Core stores and retrieves . g. Apr 15, 2022 · We need enums as strings stored in DB. Tried using 3. Running dotnet ef migrations add Init will produce the following migration: Feb 18, 2024 · I have a class User as below with an enum field Type. However, I would like to store the value in the database as a string. Writing something like this, [AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets. If you want to store them as strings use converter. It then understands that if the enum values is 6 (or 0b_0110), it represents a union of Member (0b_0010) and Contributor (0b_0100). The same goes for lookup tables. You could also just store the values as strings, and have a Dec 30, 2023 · This blog post delves into the latest updates in Entity Framework Core ORM (EF Core 8), emphasizing its new features and performance improvements. cs in the Infrastructure project. Define an extension method which will return back the value from the attribute. Explicit enum to string conversions would make your code messy and you'd have to keep parsing values. This conversion can be from one value to another of the same type (for example, encrypting strings) or from a value of one type to a value of another type (for example, converting enum values to and from string values in the database. EF for dynamic access and query compilation. Use an existing enum type from a different namespace. – Jan 6, 2021 · Is it possible to use a list of enums in an project using EF Core to store the data? My enum: public enum AudienceType { Child, Teen, [Display(Name ="Young Adult")] YoungAdult, Adult, Elderly } Class using enum: Dec 28, 2019 · I have an Enum similar to this: public enum Type { TypeA, TypeB, TypeC } I have this using Fluent API and Entity Framework 3. Convert Enum From String To Int In DB Then Back To String - Entity Framework Core 3. There was a enum used in model which create a Postgres enum type in postgres. The string conversion for EF just tells EF to store "Blue" to the DB rather than "1". I'm connecting to an existing database and would like one of the columns to be converted to an Enum, so EnumToStringConverter<> seems to be right up my alley. Jul 4, 2022 · I have a model with a property of type enum. NET CORE / EF Core I made a few adjustments to Alberto's solution. I am trying to use reflection to setup the model builder so I don't have to manually build each model. I started by covering the old way of configuring the conversion and highlighted some of its limitations. A enum always has a value as a number. CardType' is of type 'CardType' which is not supported by current database provider. Houses. . Enum is supported in Entity Framework 6 onwards. Here's the relevant part of my code: Aug 1, 2022 · Enum values in c# are always numbers to save memory. Github link https://github. No lookup table is stored nor the string names of the enum values, which makes it difficult to read the database data directly. Jun 20, 2020 · Here is a similar question to yours : Entity Framework - Code First - Can't Store List<String> Currently, it's not possible to store a list of primitive type (string included). Nevertheless, if there is a requirement to store enums within your data model as strings at the database level, it is important to have a suitable way to configure this Sep 15, 2018 · In this example, I cast the enum to an string to store in the database, and when retrieving from the database I cast the stored string to an DeliveryPreference enum. RecurringDeposit)); But this Feb 23, 2023 · Mapping Entity Framework Tables to Enums. Jun 1, 2016 · The EF enum type definitions live in conceptual layer. We can define a value conversion in the Configure method in ProjectConfiguration. Today we are looking at using string values in the DB for enums instead of int values. should be able to map it to a char property, and therefore your statement could be: Dec 16, 2020 · EF Core also does that automatically and supports both storing (and querying) enum values as int or string in database, so no additional packages are needed. ")] Mar 1, 2024 · I am attempting to get EF Core 8. For example: public class PocoEntity { public string Status { get; set; } } public static class PocoEntityStatus { public const string Ok = "ok"; public const string Failed = "failed"; } Jul 8, 2020 · It's probably easier to parse Enums. What we've talked about so far works great if you keep the enums within your codebase. 1 The definition of the entity is as follows: Feb 2, 2022 · For enumerations, these can be shared between the DTO and entity. I have found a link where it is told how values are translated from EF Core to DB, but nothing about from DB to EF Core. It's more flexible and can easily be changed w/o affecting the database tables and queries. 1 This allows you to treat Enums as strings in your database and have them correctly convert to Enums in your model. GetStringValue(this Enum value) will return attribute value. EnumStatus); } String (db type is varchar(50)): Feb 11, 2024 · You can use Value Conversions instead. Jan 11, 2024 · In this article, I documented a better way to convert enums to strings using Entity Framework Core. Representation; } } enum Tile { [Repr(". Oct 14, 2020 · This video and step-by-step walkthrough shows how to use enum types with Entity Framework Code First. I started by looking at some of the considerations you should make before confirming your decision to store enums as strings in an Azure SQL or SQL Server database. An integer id matching the C# enum value, and a name with the string value. Apr 6, 2022 · I am trying to figure out how to enable two-way name translation between postgres DB and EF Core. I posted article and related suggestion about this problem. If you are getting a value of "0" back, it's likely because Automapper is unable to convert the Color enum to a ColorDto enum. I gues MYSQL CASE would allow to do this in SQL. 1+ supports Value Conversions. PropertyBuilder. Contains(DepositType. At this point I'm not sure where else to check, any help is appreciated! Sep 16, 2019 · I'm trying to map CardType property using EF Core . Jan 28, 2023 · 1 Using EF Core and Bogus 2 EF Core Handling Concurrency Conflicts 13 more parts 3 EF Core debugging part 1 4 Using Enum with EF Core 5 SQL-Server: Computed columns with Ef Core 6 EF Core string conversions 7 Insert/read SQL-Server images with EF Core, Dapper and SqlClient 8 EF Core 7: Json columns 9 EF Core order by string column name 10 Apr 15, 2010 · You don't need to do anything if you want to store ints. But I hope the OP is using a relational DB considering it's Entity Framework. Enum support was introduced in Entity Framework 5. I came up with this code to configure that globally for all enums and am wondering if there is a better way to do that or another best practice. I put attributes on the enum values like [Description("")] or custom attributes if they need more properties, though that's getting to the point where an Enumeration class could be used instead. If your MyBaseClass is not mapped (is an abstract class), you can remove the first HasValue line describing the base discriminator. Jun 29, 2017 · I am creating a reusable library using . You can use ef-enum-to-lookup by Tim Abell. So my entire model is done via the designer, including my enum types. Property method to sort the queryable by the property names or even shadow properties. NET Data Community Standup – Collections of primitive values in EF Core; To learn more about EF Core 8, see Entity Framework Core 8 (EF Core 8) is available today announcement post. This walkthrough will use Code First to create a new database, but you can also use Code First to map to an existing database. public void Configure(EntityTypeBuilder<Person> builder) { builder. Value converters allow property values to be converted when reading from or writing to the database. In this post, we will add a new column to an entity that is of an enum type, set the default value, and create the migration script. One of my classes has a enum property. I reviewed several solutions including this SO solution by Blake Mumford, but t Converts enum values to and from their string representation. Try the next code in your ApplicationDbContext : Working with Enum in EF 6 DB-First. If you consider the following C# 12 code: using Microsoft. NET 8 has now built-in support to store lists of primitive types in a column. This can easily create a scenario where there is a mix of string and int representation for an enum value within the same document. Saving an enum as an int For the second enum, AddressType I don’t explicitly need to convert it from an enum to an int, Entity Framework will do this automatically (as pointed Aug 14, 2020 · I am using Entity Framework Code with Code First development approach and a PostgreSQL Database. I've tried checking the strings aren't being truncated by the max lengths on the columns in the database but the enum string values are definitely all valid lengths. Just map your property in EF. So, the question arises: “Can enum be serialized to a string in C#”? Let’s look for the answer in the rest of the article. ToTable("Person"); builder. Now in some cases this can quickly become very clumsy, having multiple two-column tables. I hit a problem where I wanted to use Entity Framework to save the text value of an enum to the database rather than its numeric value. 1 also allows you to map these to strings in the database with value converters. Oct 3, 2023 · Both the User entity and the AuditStandardUserInfo entity have a Competence property of type AuditCompetence (an enum). The Jan 8, 2021 · Entity Framework Enum. Dec 21, 2021 · Currently the main bottleneck seems to be network transit so optimally i'd like to cast these 4 different string values to an int enum (or something small) so that i save memory for transit. Sep 21, 2024 · In the ever-evolving world of software development, finding elegant solutions to manage data types and conversions is crucial. You can create your own but EF Core 2. 4) and I am using Entity Framework Core (and new to both). When using EF Core, the easiest way to accomplish this goal is to use an enum as the type for the property. Jan 9, 2015 · In 2. You can use the EF. I can see that EntityFrameworkCore ships with a converter called EnumToStringConverter. Metadata. Aug 26, 2020 · If the enum just needs to be converted to a string, something like this should work: C# Entity Framework Core store enum using native enum datatype. SByte, Edm. HasConversion or something i get this error: postgresql; C# Entity Framework Core store enum using native enum datatype. So something like this is a must modelBuilder. Constructors StringToEnumConverter<TEnum>() Its database enums are fully supported by the Npgsql EF integration. Sep 15, 2011 · An alternative is to use a static class with string const fields instead of enums. Gender. CardType); } But I'm getting following: The property 'Person. Dec 4, 2018 · I am new to EF Core, and am trying to seed an enum. In the database I want to store not the enum value number and the value itself as a string. Oct 20, 2020 · This enum would work fine without it but its presence lets compiler know what our intentions are. Enum. HasConversion%2A: Value converters are now supported in EntityFrameworkCore 2. Feb 23, 2017 · Here's what I have in mind. The docs say: By default, any enum properties in your model will be mapped to database integers. Then you can simply get description of them using a single join. 👍 14 Vasim-DigitalNexus, BrianMikinski, halido, Legio1221, krispenner, michaellomonosov, Skyler7BR, jcachat, bogatykh, jeffrey-igaw, and 4 more reacted with thumbs up emoji That's it! EF Core is now able to deal with string enums. e. 0 and 6. Horrible in a NoSQL database, yes, I agree. As it stands, our EF models will work fine. EF Core 2. 1 https: creating a native Postgres type is a huge PITA. Jan 13, 2014 · @Floremin: Yes I'm using model first. Sure, that problem exists also for numeric values, but IMHO that is less possible. Please read our previous article discussing Self-Referential Relationships in Entity Framework Core. Entity<DemoEntity>() . If I were to use this using Entity Framework (code first) then the int values will be stored in the database. Int32 or Edm. – Ivan Stoev Commented Dec 16, 2020 at 19:36 Sep 8, 2021 · I want to configure all enums to be stored as string instead of int just to be more readable in the DB. A JSON to store a mere list of string doesn't seem like such a poor solution, assuming it's only a list of strings and no complex objects. 7) there is no other way than the one described in EF CORE 2. Jan 25, 2021 · @resstel: I just noticed that you have over fifty options in your actual enum! Given that, I’ve updated my answer to include a shorthand for assigning powers of two that will make it dramatically easier to do the counting once you get past your twelfth item (4096). Entity Framework. Gender is an Enum. Property(e => e. 0. I hope I wrote clearly Since the underlying database column type is string, association value converter is the correct mapping (by default EF Core maps enums to int). This flexibility makes it For example, enum to string conversions are used as an example above, but EF Core will actually do this automatically when the provider type is configured as string using the generic type of xref:Microsoft. 5. Key highlights include Complex Types for more expressive models, Unmapped Queries for running SQL without an ORM setup, Primitive Collections to store lists of primitives without extra tables, and support for `DateOnly` and `TimeOnly` types. Enum can be created for the following data types: Int16 ; Int32; Int64; Byte; SByte; Enum can be used in the following ways: Convert an existing property of an entity to enum type from EDM designer. The problem is that queries wont work as described in the link below when a custom serializer is used instead of CosmosSerializationOptions. It is a nicer solution than the one presented here. What if you’d rather store it as a string, so it reads The problem with all of these answers is that they store the Enum as either a string or number column of the enum's parent table. However, instead of sorting by description strings in the database, I would create ordered map in memory, associating int "order" value with each enum value like this: In . 1. Jul 13, 2022 · Benefits of Using Value Converters for Enums in EF Core. According to Data Seeding, this feature is new to EF Core 2. Byte, Edm. NET Conf 2023 – Entity Framework Core 8: Improved JSON, queryable collections, and more… YouTube: . 1 to Entity Framework Core 6. NET Core application which communicate with a Postgres database using entity framework. It also demonstrates how to use enums in a LINQ query. I have an entity class that looks like: public class Campaign Jan 13, 2022 · I am upgrading my project from Entity Framework Core 3. 0: builder. Enums and Entity Framework Core. NETStandard 1. There are multiple reasons why you shouldn't just shove them all in a string, but the two most clear ones (IMO) are that it makes it impossible to query for those MyObjects for which Number contains (for example) 10, and it Oct 24, 2020 · EF. The different kinds of configuration are: Explicit: The model element was explicitly configured in OnModelCreating; DataAnnotation: The model element was configured using a mapping attribute (aka data annotation) on the CLR type Jan 17, 2016 · I'm working on a side project where I use Entity Framework 6 for my data layer. Constructors StringToEnumConverter<TEnum>() Converts strings to and from enum values. Full source code here. Nov 2, 2023 · In this article, I have walked through how to store and retrieve enums as strings with Entity Framework Core. Aug 3, 2022 · However all of these enum values are being saved as the numeric value behind the enum. By default, any enum properties in your model will be mapped to database integers. This is represented by the ConfigurationSource enum. So the column size would be max number of characters possible in enum name multiplied by number of bytes required to store a character. 1 comes with some pre-defined value converters out of the box. com/alwill/DevTips/tree/master/EfCoreEnumCo Feb 10, 2022 · We can fix this by telling Entity Framework Core how to convert the object to and from the database using value conversions introduced into Entity Framework Core in version 2. Jun 25, 2019 · C#のEnumは内部的にはintなので、Javaと違って値が文字列(string)となるEnumは言語の標準機能では使用することはできません。 また、エンティティクラス側でそのプロパティの型をEnumにする場合、文字列との変換をどのように行うのかを定義する必要があります。 Sep 1, 2020 · Currently (EF Core 3. Similarly to CLR enums the EF enums have underlying type which is one of Edm. However, when I took a look at the database I noticed that in the database the enum was actually stored as an integer, not as an enum as I had expected. Nov 13, 2021 · In case someone (myself included) runs into problems in the future when working with filtering a Postgres array of enums mapped as strings in EF Core, I'm just gonna make it clear that the workaround above works for arrays too, namely: This does not work. HaveConversion<string?>(); My schema has the column defined as a null-able NVARCHAR(50) for instance and I can store a row with an enumeration value (which converts to string) and a #null value which leaves the column as the default #null. ' – KDani Feb 7, 2017 · Actually, I would prefer to store the underlying integer value because: if anybody renames the values of the enum, the connection to the database is lost. Id-- exactly the extra table you want to avoid. Entity&lt;Element& Enum Type Mapping. Using value converters in EF Core for enums offers several advantages, which include: Flexibility: Value converters allow you to store enum values in various formats in the database, such as chars or strings, without changing the enum definition in your code. EntityFrameworkCore. Houses table with the same data we had at the start of this article, we can use EF to read that data out: using Context context = new Context(); var house = context. Int64 with Edm. EF Core will store string enums in non-nullable string columns (NVARCHAR(MAX) in SQL Server, TEXT in Postgres). Mar 27, 2022 · When dealing with databases, there are times when you want a column to only allow certain values. First, MySQL has an enum type which can look very much like a Boolean or restricted set of strings when set up that way. As of EF Core you can use Enums directly using Fluent API. TryParse("Active", out StatusEnum myStatus); This also includes C#7's new inline out variables, so this does the try-parse, conversion to the explicit enum type and initialises+populates the myStatus variable. Your best bet would be to store the list as a string in your database, and when you fetch it you transform it back to a list. Oct 13, 2024 · By default, EF Core will store the enum as an integer, but not very human-friendly if you ever need to look at the data directly. If you want to see this Nov 17, 2021 · But I'm not sure I'd use this as a solution. The difference here is the way of identifying Enum type properties, and due to the lack of easy public way of getting entity type builder (this property builder), the direct usage of SetProviderClrType metadata API instead of more intuitive HasConversion: Jun 19, 2023 · This is a breaking change and it's extra problematic for databases that used EF JSON functionality in 7. And when using EF Core FirstOrDefault I get the value from the database I want to convert the string to an enum. For brevity, only the modifications are shown below: Create a extension method to get description from enum and seed values Dec 21, 2011 · You can achieve it but it will require a bit of work. cs with some simple find/replace to generate a bunch of UPDATE statements and do the conversion of the old values as part of a migrate - I'm still interested to know if there's a cheap way to make EF try to convert the "2" to "Ready", especially if I'm going to be adjusting the modelbuilder and making all the Mar 14, 2019 · Seamless way to store and retrieve enums from a string field using EF Model. Mar 25, 2013 · But you want to store a separate list of ints for each MyObject. NET Core and . If both use the same Enum type it should work as expected. 0 there is a generic parse method:. the Value can be any type. If we populate our dbo. New genres might need to be added in the future, and a simple string instead of an enum might be better. You can use the built-in EnumToStringConverter<> to automatically convert an Enum to string, and vice versa. Functions. This works out quite well. Apr 25, 2012 · The way enums work in EF is that they are just cast to the underlying type and are treated as if they were one of the following integral types int64, int32, int16, byte, sbyte (note unsigned integral types are not supported by EDM and therefore enums with unsigned underlying type won't work and also in the database enum columns are just columns Seems someone has been struggling with that and found solution. – Converts strings to and from enum values. The classes which contain the enum declarations are therefore auto-generated by EF's T4. 1, mapping an enum property to a string property will result in the enums being saved as strings in the database. The language doesn't enforce restricting enum values to the set of allowed values: enum ThisTest { A, B, C } class Program { static void Main(string[] args) { var t = (ThisTest) 16; Console. You do this with a value converter. ToString() , then get an exception says 'The LINQ expression could not be translated. If you're using SQL Server or something else without enum support, I usually make an enums schema and make a table for each enum that has two columns. 1 HasConversion on all properties of type datetime. Field)] public class ReprAttribute : Attribute { public string Representation; public ReprAttribute(string representation) { this. Example: Feb 27, 2020 · Currently, there's nothing prevent an enum with the [Flags] attribute from also having a conversion to string when configuring the model: HasConversion<string>() This works fine for client side evaluations but for server side, an issue a Jun 4, 2024 · YouTube: . 0, and facing trouble with using enum as a property type for a bigint column of a table built in PostgreSQL. 2's type-per-hiearchy configuration working with an enum used for the discriminator. Storing enums as strings since EF Core 2. It is better to store the int value of enumn in database instead of its description and use lookup tables. May 16, 2018 · In addition to @PaoloFulgoni, here is how you'd do it if you want a many-to-many relationship with enums i. Representation = representation; } public override string ToString() { return this. 0, 5. You could store a string that contains some form of a serialization of your list of enum: For instance "Western; Drama", or a JSON representation Nov 23, 2014 · In September 2018 I wrote a new post explaining how to store enums as ints or strings with Entity Framework Core. PRIOR TO EF CORE 8 (or if you want to manually control the serialization instead of using JSON) This can be achieved in a much more simple way starting with Entity Framework Core 2. SupportedDepositTypes. Just add [Column] attribute to your enum field and specify TypeName as nvarchar (for SQL) or varchar (for postgres). Aug 12, 2015 · For those who are looking for a solution in EF Core: There is a set of functions available in Microsoft. Dec 11, 2019 · EF Core 2. With Entity Framework Core (EF Core), value conversions provide a… Aug 7, 2024 · This worked for me: configurationBuilder. Color) as integer values. First(); Nov 28, 2019 · Using a custom serializer works fine and JsonStringEnumConverter will correctly record enums as strings in the DB. EDIT. When I call the x. From the database point of view, this enum should be stored as an ID field in the parent table, which references a lookup table via a foreign key. WriteLine(t); } } This program compiles and runs perfectly fine. Position) . Like() expects two string parameters, but the x. Different Ways to Serialize Enum to String in C#. May 23, 2015 · However, there are many approaches that look similar to storing strings in the database (in particular MySQL) that are efficient. See: Store a Dictionary as a JSON string using EF Core 2. – Dec 16, 2014 · public enum Currency { EUR = 1, USD = 2, GBP = 3 } Let's say I have an enum as shown above. We want to serialize the enums as strings. See EF Core value converters for more information and examples. If you want a string you should be using a Dictionary which contains a KEY and Value. Migrations. Nov 21, 2018 · Enum support in EF Core is quite extensive, in this article I’ll cover how to use an enum as a Primary Key, as well as storing the integer and string value of the enum in a column. 0 (with their respective EF versions), lots of different combinations but nothing seems to Enum Type Mapping.

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