Missing ProviderName when debugging AzureFunction as well as deploying azure function

Question

I have an issue getting a DbContext to correctly pull my connection string from my local.settings.json

Context:

• This is an Az

Answer 1

Here are two approaches that work for me:

Approach 1

• Add the connection string to the App Settings (respectively local.settings.json) in the following format:

metadata=res:///xxx.csdl|res:///xxx.ssdl|res://*/xxx.msl;provider=System.Data.SqlClient;provider connection string='data source=xxx.database.windows.net;initial catalog=xxx;user id=xxx;password=xxx;MultipleActiveResultSets=True;App=EntityFramework'`

• Go to the class that extends DbContext ("TestEntities") and extend the constructor to take the connection string as argument

public partial class TestEntities: DbContext
{
    public TestEntities(string connectionString)
        : base(connectionString)
    {
    }

• If you want then to interact with the database you need to retrieve the connection string from the app settings and then pass it over when initializing DbContext

string connectionString = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("connectionStringAppSettings");

using (var dbContext = new TestEntities(connectionString))
{
// Do Something
}

• The problem with this approach is that every time you update the database you need to update the class "TestEntities" as it is overwritten

Approach 2

• The goal here is to leave the class "TestEntities" as is to avoid the issue from Approach 1

• Add the connection string to the App Settings (respectively local.settings.json) like in Approach 1

• Leave TestEntities as is

public partial class TestEntities : DbContext
    {
        public TestEntities ()
            : base("name=TestEntities")
        {
        }

• As TestEntities is partial you can extend that class by creating another one that is also partial with the same name in the same namespace. The goal of this class is to provide the constructor that takes the connection string as argument

public partial class TestEntities
{
    public TestEntities(string connectionString)
        : base(connectionString)
    {
    }
}

• Then you can go on like with Approach 1