EF Code-First Approach

Entity Framework is the Microsoft preferred method of data access for .NET applications. It supports strongly-typed access through LINQ. Entity Framework also allows developers to program against a conceptual model that reflects application logic rather than a relational model that reflects the database structure.

Code First Approach

The Code First Approach provides an alternative to the Database First and Model First approaches to the Entity Data Model and creates a database for us based on our classes.

Code-First Workflow

The following figure illustrates the code-first development workflow.

The development workflow in the code-first approach would be: Create or modify domain classes -> configure these domain classes using Fluent-API or data annotation attributes -> Create or update the database schema using automated migration or code-based migration.

The Code-First approach also requires a context class which should be derived from DbContext class. Create a context class as shown below. It derives from DBContext class and exposes DbSet properties for the types that you want to be part of the model.