Installation of Entity Framework Core

In this tutorial you will learn How to Install Entity Framework Core on your project.

This tutorial is a part of Entity Framework Core series.

• 1. Introduction to Entity Framework Core
• 2. Installation of Entity Framework Core
• 3. Database-First approach in Entity Framework Core
• 4. DbContext Class in Entity Framework Core
• 5. Code-First Approach in Entity Framework Core
• 6. Migrations in Entity Framework Core
• 7. Insert Records in Entity Framework Core
• 8. Read Records in Entity Framework Core
• 9. Update Records in Entity Framework Core
• 10. Delete Records in Entity Framework Core
• 11. Conventions in Entity Framework Core
• 12. Configurations in Entity Framework Core
• 13. Fluent API in Entity Framework Core
• 14. Configure One-to-Many relationship using Fluent API in Entity Framework Core
• 15. Configure One-to-One relationship using Fluent API in Entity Framework Core
• 16. Configure Many-to-Many relationship using Fluent API in Entity Framework Core
• 17. Execute Raw SQL Queries using FromSqlRaw() method in Entity Framework Core
• 18. Execute SQL Stored Procedures using FromSqlRaw() & ExecuteSqlRawAsync() methods in Entity Framework Core

First create a new ASP.NET Core Web Application in Visual Studio as shown by the image below.

Specify the location on your drive where you want the application to be created and give it some name of your choice. Check the given below image.

Next select .NET Core & ASP.NET Core 3.1 from the options (check below image).

Finally click the Create button. Now you are ready to Install Entity Framework Core on your application.

Install EF Core using NuGet Package

There are 2 things to install here:

• EF Core DB provider – I will be using SQL Server so I will install EF Core SQL Server provider.
• EF Core tools – These are of 2 types – .NET Core command-line interface (CLI) tools & Package Manager Console (PMC) tools.

Install EF Core SQL Server Provider

EF Core has DB providers of all major databases. The installation of each of them is done through NuGet. Here I will tell you how to install DB provider for SQL Server database.

In your Visual Studio go to Tools > NuGet Package Manager > Manage NuGet Packages for Solution, this will open the NuGet UI.

Here click the Browse link and search for Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer on the text box.

It will show up on the results below the search box. Click on it, then on the right side check the checkbox given against the project.

Finally click the Install button.

The installation will start and you will see Preview Changes window. Click the OK button.

Next you will see the License Acceptance window, click the I Accept button.

Within few seconds the installation procedure will complete and the Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer provider will be installed on your project.

You can verify it by seeing the Dependencies > NuGet section of your Solution Explorer.

Install EF Core Tools

There are many EF Core commands like Migration, scaffoldings that needs to be executed. We use 2 tools to execute them. These are:

• 1. .NET Core command-line interface (CLI) tools
• 2. Package Manager Console (PMC) tools

1. Install .NET Core command-line interface (CLI) tools

First open Package Manager Console window (Tools ➤ NuGet Package Manager ➤ Package Manager Console) then install dotnet ef by running the following command.

dotnet tool install --global dotnet-ef

Next, install the Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design package by running the following command on the Package Manager Console window.

dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design

Test the packages by running the following command on Package Manager Console.

PM> dotnet ef

You will see a horse picture telling the dotnet CLI has been installed successfully.

2. Install Package Manager Console (PMC) tools

Go to NuGet UI and search for Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools, and install it (i.e the first one).

You can download the full codes of this tutorial from the below link:

DOWNLOAD