EF 4.1 Code First - map enum wrapper as complex type

Question

I\'m trying to build a generic solution to the problem of enums with EF 4.1. My solution is basically a generic version of How to fake enums in ef 4. The enum wrapper class

Answer 1

There's a much simpler way to map enums in EF 4: just create an int property on your ChickenSandwich class to represent the int value of the enum. That's the property that EF should map, then have a "mini wrapper" property to allow you to use the enum

public class ChickenSandwich 
{   
    public int ID { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    // This property will be mapped
    public int CheeseColorValue { get; set; }

    public Color CheseColor
    {
        get { return (Color) CheeseColorValue; }
        set { CheeseColorValue = (int) value; }
    }
}

I actually don't have to use the Fluent API or any kind of attribute decoration for this to work. On generating the database, EF will happily ignore any type it doesn't know how to map, but the int property will be mapped.

I have tried mapping enums based on that article too, but it caused me no end of headaches. This method works well, and you could adapt your solution to use your wrapper as the "mapping" property, i.e. CheeseColor in this case.