CRUD Operations in Entity Framework

CRUD is an acronym that stands for Create, Read, Update, and Delete. These are the four basic operations that can be performed on data in a database. In this article, we will take a look at how to use Entity Framework Core, a popular ORM (Object-Relational Mapping) framework, to perform these operations on a database.

What is Entity Framework Core?

Entity Framework Core is a lightweight and extensible version of the popular Entity Framework data access technology. It is an open-source, cross-platform framework that allows you to easily access and manipulate data stored in a variety of databases. Entity Framework Core uses a code-first approach, which means you can create your database schema directly from your C# classes.

Creating a record

To create a new record in a database table using Entity Framework Core, you can use the Add method of the DbSet class. This method takes an entity object as an argument and adds it to the database context. For example, to insert a new customer into a Customers table, you might use code like this:

Copy codeusing (var context = new AppDbContext())
{
    var customer = new Customer
    {
        Name = \"John Smith\",
        Email = \"john@example.com\"
    };

    context.Customers.Add(customer);
    context.SaveChanges();
}

Reading a record

To read a record from a database using Entity Framework Core, you can use the Find method of the DbSet class. This method takes the primary key of the entity as an argument and returns the entity object if it is found in the database. For example, to retrieve a customer with a specific ID from the Customers table, you might use code like this:

Copy codeusing (var context = new AppDbContext())
{
    var customer = context.Customers.Find(1);
}

Updating a record

To update an existing record in a database table using Entity Framework Core, you can use the Update method of the DbSet class. This method takes an entity object as an argument and marks it as modified in the database context. For example, to update the email address of a customer in the Customers table, you might use code like this:

Copy codeusing (var context = new AppDbContext())
{
    var customer = context.Customers.Find(1);
    customer.Email = \"newemail@example.com\";
    context.Customers.Update(customer);
    context.SaveChanges();
}

Deleting a record

To delete a record from a database table using Entity Framework Core, you can use the Remove method of the DbSet class. This method takes an entity object as an argument and marks it as deleted in the database context. For example, to delete a customer from the Customers table, you might use code like this:

Copy codeusing (var context = new AppDbContext())
{
    var customer = context.Customers.Find(1);
    context.Customers.Remove(customer);
    context.SaveChanges();
}

Conclusion

Entity Framework Core is a powerful and easy-to-use framework for accessing and manipulating data in a database. By using the Add, Find, Update, and Remove methods of the DbSet class, you can easily perform