Changing schema name on runtime - Entity Framework

Question

I need to change the storage schema of the entities on runtime. I\'ve followed a wonderful post, available here: http://blogs.microsoft.co.il/blogs/idof/archive/2008/08/22/c

Answer 1

Well, I was looking for this piece of code all around the Internet. In the end I had to do it myself. It's based on Brandon Haynes adapter, but this function is all you need to change the schema on runtime - and you don't need to replace the autogenerated context constructors.

public static EntityConnection Create(
    string schema, string connString, string model)
{
    XmlReader[] conceptualReader = new XmlReader[]
    {
        XmlReader.Create(
            Assembly
                .GetExecutingAssembly()
                .GetManifestResourceStream(model + ".csdl")
        )
    };
    XmlReader[] mappingReader = new XmlReader[]
    {
        XmlReader.Create(
            Assembly
                .GetExecutingAssembly()
                .GetManifestResourceStream(model + ".msl")
        )
    };

    var storageReader = XmlReader.Create(
        Assembly
            .GetExecutingAssembly()
            .GetManifestResourceStream(model + ".ssdl")
    );
    XNamespace storageNS = "http://schemas.microsoft.com/ado/2009/02/edm/ssdl";

    var storageXml = XElement.Load(storageReader);

    foreach (var entitySet in storageXml.Descendants(storageNS + "EntitySet"))
    {   
        var schemaAttribute = entitySet.Attributes("Schema").FirstOrDefault();
        if (schemaAttribute != null)
        {
            schemaAttribute.SetValue(schema);
        }
    }
    storageXml.CreateReader();

    StoreItemCollection storageCollection =
        new StoreItemCollection(
            new XmlReader[] { storageXml.CreateReader() }
        );
    EdmItemCollection conceptualCollection = new EdmItemCollection(conceptualReader);
    StorageMappingItemCollection mappingCollection =
        new StorageMappingItemCollection(
            conceptualCollection, storageCollection, mappingReader
        );

    var workspace = new MetadataWorkspace();
    workspace.RegisterItemCollection(conceptualCollection);
    workspace.RegisterItemCollection(storageCollection);
    workspace.RegisterItemCollection(mappingCollection);

    var connectionData = new EntityConnectionStringBuilder(connString);
    var connection = DbProviderFactories
        .GetFactory(connectionData.Provider)
        .CreateConnection();
    connection.ConnectionString = connectionData.ProviderConnectionString;

    return new EntityConnection(workspace, connection);
}

The resulting EntityConnection should be passed as a parameter when instantiating the context. You can modify it, so all ssdl models are modified by this function, not only the specified one.