Update Nov 2024

I've made a lot of peace with EF Core migrations, so I've largely changed my mind about this project. The reason I don't retire this completely is due to one recurring pain point with EF migrations. There's no good way to preview the next migration. You have to add the migration (and spend time thinking up a name for it), then decide if you like it. If you don't like it, you must explicitly remove it. I find that unexpected changes can creep in, or expected changes aren't included, or the generated code is more complex than I'm expecting, requiring me to stop and analyze it. This adds friction and breaks flow. So, while I don't think I could improve upon the core EF migration tooling directly, I do see an opportunity for a migration preview feature that presents a compact view of changes that will be in the next migration. I'm not sure that this project could help with that. I'm keeping this around while I figure that out.

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This is a library and command-line tool to merge C# entity classes to SQL Server tables -- code-first entity development without migrations.

This is a work in progress with a fair bit of missing functionality. I've been dog-fooding it myself on personal projects.

Here's a short demo if this in use: https://1drv.ms/v/s!AvguHRnyJtWMm9FLgaVutQsBPatSwQ?e=pBii6T

Getting Started

1. Install the ensync tool (currently in alpha):

dotnet tool install --global Ensync.SqlServer --version 1.0.12-alpha

2. Navigate to a C# project directory in a command line window and type ensync with no arguments. If it's your first time running, a pair of config files will be created in the root of your project: ensync.config.json and ensync.ignore.json. (Take care that you run ensync in a project directory and not the solution directory. You'll get an error if you run in the solution directory because there's usually no buildable project in the solution directory.)
3. The config file indicates the source assembly that defines your data model along with one or more Sql Server database targets. Edit this as needed with your DLL path and database connection.

Sample

{
"AssemblyPath": ".\\bin\\Debug\\net8.0\\LiteInvoice.Database.dll",
"DatabaseTargets": [
  {
    "Name": "DefaultConnection",
    "Type": "SqlServer",
    "ConnectionString": "Server=(localdb)\\mssqllocaldb;Database=LiteInvoiceNet8;Integrated Security=true",
    "IsProduction": false
  }
]
}

4. As you add and modify your C# entity classes, periodically go to the console and type ensync to preview the SQL script of changes that will patch your database. If you're satisfied with the script, type ensync --merge to apply the changes.

Why?

This is a reboot of my ModelSync project, to break from the NETStandard2 dependency, refactor the diff engine with fresh eyes, and to rebuild all the tooling. The long term vision is to have a WPF app remake of ModelSync UI.

I like code-first database development, but I never made peace with EF migrations. I find them way too fussy and complicated. They interefere with database development flow in my opinion. I'm looking for a more fluid and effortless experience around entity development. That's what this project is about.

A "fluid" experience does come with a trade-off, however. In a team environment, this library is not intended for merging to a local database. Local database merging works, but the generated SQL scripts are run and discarded, not saved as code in your repository.

For that reason, in team scenarios, it works best to merge to shared databases.