IDENTITY_INSERT during seeding with EntityFramework 6 Code-First

Question

I have an entity that has an Auto-identity (int) column. As part of the data-seed I want to use specific identifier values for the \"standard data\" in my syste

Answer 1

So I might have resolved this one by resorting to generating my own SQL insert statements that include the Id column. It feels like a terrible hack, but it works :-/

public class Seeder
{
    public void Seed (DbContext context)
    {

        var myThing = new ReferenceThing
        {
            Id = 1,
            Name = "Thing with Id 1"
        };

        context.Set.Add(myThing);

        context.Database.Connection.Open();
        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("SET IDENTITY_INSERT ReferenceThing ON")

        // manually generate SQL & execute
        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("INSERT ReferenceThing (Id, Name) " +
                                           "VALUES (@0, @1)", 
                                           myThing.Id, myThing.Name);

        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand("SET IDENTITY_INSERT ReferenceThing OFF")
    }
}