Entity Framework 4.1 Code First and permanent tabl

Question

I have an table that permanently stores a list of zip codes and city names for the US. Unfortunately, it seems that with EF 4.1 if I modify the model during developement, the entire db needs to be droped and recreated. Since migrations are not yet supported in EF, this seems to be a problem. Any ideas?

Answer 1

Actually first CTP version of migrations is already available but it is still just preview.

Answer 2

you can use a custome initializer class. In here you can insert all values when database changes happens. This is from Contoso Universty example from msdn.

    public class SchoolInitializer : DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges<SchoolContext>
        {
            protected override void Seed(SchoolContext context)
            {
                var students = new List<Student>
                {
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Carson",   LastName = "Alexander", EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2005-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Meredith", LastName = "Alonso",    EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2002-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Arturo",   LastName = "Anand",     EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2003-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Gytis",    LastName = "Barzdukas", EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2002-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Yan",      LastName = "Li",        EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2002-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Peggy",    LastName = "Justice",   EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2001-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Laura",    LastName = "Norman",    EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2003-09-01") },
                    new Student { FirstMidName = "Nino",     LastName = "Olivetto",  EnrollmentDate = DateTime.Parse("2005-09-01") }
                };
                students.ForEach(s => context.Students.Add(s));
                context.SaveChanges();


    }
 }