Update a single property of a record in Entity Framework Code First

Question

How can I update a single property of a record without retrieving it first? I\'m asking in the context of EF Code First 4.1

Says I have a class User

Answer 1

I'm actually dealing with this right now. What I decided to do was override the ValidateEntity method in the DB context.

protected override DbEntityValidationResult ValidateEntity(DbEntityEntry entityEntry, IDictionary items)
{
    var result = base.ValidateEntity(entityEntry, items);

    var errors = new List();

    foreach (var error in result.ValidationErrors)
    {
        if (entityEntry.Property(error.PropertyName).IsModified)
        {
            errors.Add(error);
        }
    }

    return new DbEntityValidationResult(entityEntry, errors);
} 

I'm sure there's some holes that can be poked in it, but it seemed better than the alternatives.