Can Entity Framework add many related entities with single SaveChanges()?

Question

I am writing many (20+) parent child datasets to the database, and EF is requiring me to savechanges between each set, without which it complains about not being able to fig

Answer 1

You don`t need to save changes every time if you use objects refernces to newly created objects not IDs:

var addItemTracking = new ItemTracking
{
    ...
}
_context.ItemTrackings.Add(addItemTracking);
var addInventoryTransaction = new InventoryTransaction
{
    itemTracking = addItemTracking,
    ...
};
_context.InventoryTransactions.Add(addInventoryTransaction);
...
_context.SaveChanges();

Answer 2

Since they're all new items rather than

itemTrackingID = addItemTracking.ItemTrackingID,

you could go with

addItemTracking.InventoryTransaction = addInventoryTransaction;

(or whatever the associated navigation property is) and pull the _context.SaveChanges() out of the loop entirely. Entity Framework is very good at inserting object graphs when everything is new. When saving object graphs containing both new and existing items setting the associated id is always safer.

Answer 3

How about:

var trackingItems = itemCounts
    .Select(i => new ItemTracking
        {
            availabilityStatusID = availabilityStatusId,
            itemBatchId = i.ItemBatchId,
            locationID = locationId,
            serialNumber = serialNumber,
            trackingQuantityOnHand = i.CycleQuantity
        });
_context.ItemTrackings.AddRange(trackingItems);
_context.SaveChanges();

var inventoryTransactions = trackingItems
    .Select(t => new InventoryTransaction
        {
            activityHistoryID = newInventoryTransaction.activityHistoryID,
            itemTrackingID = t.ItemTrackingID,
            personID = newInventoryTransaction.personID,
            usageTransactionTypeId = newInventoryTransaction.usageTransactionTypeId,
            transactionDate = newInventoryTransaction.transactionDate,
            usageQuantity = usageMultiplier * t.trackingQuantityOnHand
        });
_context.InventoryTransactions.AddRange(inventoryTransactions);
_context.SaveChanges();

However I haven't worked with EF for quite a while and above code is written in notepad so I cannot vouch for it