EntityFilesystem 4.0.3

EntityFilesystem

An EntityFramework Filesystem Provider

Adds the ability to store information in files instead of being limited to databases.

FileBaseContext is a EntityFramework Filesystem Provider for Net8+

Works for

• Unit Test - Mocking
• Serverless db persistance, easier than Sqlite (Tables are created for one thing)
• Works cross platform, easy offline persistant data store

Usage

Install nuget package EntityFilesystem

PM> Install-Package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore
PM> Install-Package EntityFilesystem

// DbStartup.cs
using FileBaseContext.Extensions;

partial void CustomInit(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
{
    optionsBuilder.UseFileBaseContextDatabase(databaseName: "DbFolderName");
}

Examples

Created with Entity Framework Visual Editor Extension from Visual Studio Marketplace

• Ex1_ModelPerson
• Ex2_ModelOne2One
• Ex3_ModelOnetoMany
• Ex4_ModeManytoMany
• Ex5_ModelInvoice
• Ex6_Course
• Ex7_Mvp

https://github.com/Opzet/EFDesignerExamples

NUGET package https://www.nuget.org/packages/EntityFilesystem

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/providers/?tabs=dotnet-core-cli

Benefits

Store tables in file, easy 'Serverless' file system text file serialised ef db persistance

• Easier than Sqlite, just works
• you don't need a database server
• rapid modeling
• version control supported
• supports all serializable .NET types
• unit tests

Configure Provider

Powerful file based database provider for Entity Framework Core, easy 'Serverless' file system text file serialised ef db persistance

Named database

 protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
    {
        optionsBuilder.UseFileBaseContextDatabase(databaseName: DatabaseName); 
    }

Custom location

optionsBuilder.UseFileBaseContextDatabase(location: "C:\Temp\userDb");

Unit testing

If you need to use the provider in unit tests, you can change IFileSystem to MockFileSystem in OnConfiguring method in datacontext class.

private readonly MockFileSystem _fileSystem;
public DbTestContext(MockFileSystem fileSystem)
{
    _fileSystem = fileSystem;
}

protected override void OnConfiguring(DbContextOptionsBuilder optionsBuilder)
{
    optionsBuilder.UseFileBaseContextDatabase(DatabaseName, null, services =>
    {
        services.AddMockFileSystem(_fileSystem);
    });
}

History / Forks

File system Entity Frameworks Providers

a. FileContext by DevMentor

https://github.com/pmizel/DevMentor.Context.FileContext Core 2+

b. FileContextCore by morrisjdev

https://github.com/morrisjdev/FileContextCore Offers Different serializer supported (XML, JSON, CSV, Excel) Core 2/3 - last update Aug 2, 2020

c. FileBaseContext by dualbios

https://github.com/dualbios/FileBaseContext FileBaseContext is a provider of Entity Framework Core 8 to store database information in files. [Current developement: forked from this, adjusted namespace, tweaks, published nuget and added examples] Core 8+