How to access context after each Entity Framework db migration

Question

When I Add-Migration, I get the appropriate DbMigration class with the Up / Down methods, where I am able to make schema changes and (with the use of the Sql() method) can make data/content changes as well.

I'd like to be able to make content changes per migration using the database context. I understand that I could use the Seed method in a Configuration class, but my understanding is that I can only wire up one Configuration with my initializer.

I'd prefer to have a UpCompleted()/DownCompleted() methods that would provide access to the db context after the migration completed. This would enable writing incremental data/context change "scripts" in a manner that would be less prone to errors than using the Sql() method.

Am I missing something? Is this possible?

Thanks!

Answer 1

That doesn't really work because the context only has your most recent model - which can only be used to access the database once the most recent migration has run (which is effectively what Seed achieves).

For an example of how this idea breaks, if you moved a property from one class to another then seed logic from older migrations would no longer compile. But you couldn't change it to use the new property because the corresponding column wouldn't exist in the database yet.

If you want to write this kind of seed/data-manipulation logic, you need to put it at the end of the Up/Down methods and use the Sql method to perform it using raw SQL.

~Rowan