Long-running Seed method with Entity Framework code-first - entity-framework-6

Question

My Seed() method is getting rather long-running. Is there a way to write to the console whilst running the update-database command?
So far, Console.WriteLine() and Debug.WriteLine() have not written output to the Package Manager Console.

Answer 1

You can avoid run-on seed methods by extending the base DbContext class with a method that accepts an interface and returns the context instance to keep things fluent.
Though it doesn't solve the issue of not being able to write console/debug output in the package manager console, it will tell you which entity that you failed on while keeping things tidy.
Configuration.cs
using System.Configuration;
using MySolution.Data.Migrations.Seedings;
namespace MySolution.Data.Migrations
{
using System.Data.Entity.Migrations;
internal sealed class Configuration : DbMigrationsConfiguration<MySolution.Data.MySolutionContext>
{
public Configuration()
{
AutomaticMigrationsEnabled = false;
}
protected override void Seed(MySolution.Data.MySolutionContext context)
{
context
.AppendSeeding<AddressSeeding>(true)
.AppendSeeding<CustomerSeeding>(true)
.AppendSeeding<OrderSeeding>(true)
.AppendSeeding<ShipmentSeeding>(true)
.AppendSeeding<ApplicationSettingsSeeding>();
}
}
}
DbContextExtensions.cs
using System;
using System.Data.Entity;
namespace MySolution.Data.Migrations {
public static class DbContextExtensions {
public static DbContext AppendSeeding<T>(
this DbContext context, bool saveChanges = false)
where T : ISeeding, new() {
var seeding = new T();
try {
seeding.Seed(context);
if (saveChanges) {
context.SaveChanges();
}
}
catch (Exception ex) {
throw new Exception(
$"Unhandled exception while appending seed data via {seeding.GetType().Name}",
ex);
}
return context;
}
}
}
ISeeding.cs
using System.Data.Entity;
namespace MySolution.Data.Migrations {
public interface ISeeding {
void Seed(DbContext context);
}
}
AddressSeeding.cs (Example implementation of ISeeding)
using System;
using System.Data.Entity;
using System.Data.Entity.Migrations;
using MySolution.Data.Models;
namespace MySolution.Data.Migrations.Seedings {
public class AddressSeeding : ISeeding {
public void Seed(DbContext context) {
((MySolutionContext)context).Address.AddOrUpdate(
address => new { address.Address1},
new Address {
Address1 = "111 Fake St.",
City = "Nowhereland",
County = "Countyville",
State = "ST",
Zip = "12345",
AddressType = new AddressType {
Name = "Home"
},
}
);
}
}
}