New Features Of Entity Framework 7

Entity Framework is one of the most powerful ORM (Object Relation Mapper) frameworks. It is generally used as a Data Access layer in the application. Initially, the Entity framework came with fewer features and limited functionality. There were continuous changes made in the Entity framework as a result, the entity framework has become more powerful and comes with lots of new features in every release. In this article, we will discuss what are the new features available in Entity Framework 7. Firstly, we will discuss what items are removed from Entity Framework 7 and we will discuss new features of Entity Framework. The following Items no longer supported in Entity Framework 7,

EDMX Support

EDMX (Entity Model Data XML) is no longer supported in Entity framework 7. This means that Entity framework 7 only supports the code first approach. EDMX file stores everything in one file and it may view in Entity framework designer and contains tightly coupled mappings configurations and contexts. ESQL support

Entity SQL is a preferable way to execute LINQ to Entity. Now, ESQL is no longer supported by Entity framework 7. Automatic Migration

Generating database schema from the entity model is called migration. There are many techniques available for performing migration likes explicitly adding migrations through code by using PM (package manager) console. There are alternative methods are available called Automatic Migration. In automatic migration, migrations were done in run time. This Automatic migration is supported by Entity framework 7. ObjectContext API support DbContext class was introduced in Entity Framework 4.1. Up to entity framework 4, ObjectContext Class is used to manage all the database operations and manages various entities of the Entity Model. DbContext is conceptually similar to ObjectContext. DbContext is nothing but an ObjectContext wrapper, we can say it is a lightweight alternative to the ObjectContext. Up to entity framework 6.x, ObjectContext API is continuing for the backward compatibility purpose. This API has been removing in the new version. Apart from these, the other two features Metadata Workspace API and MEST (Multiple Entities for Single Type) Mapping are also discontinued in the new version. EF 7 is now Open source

Like EF 6, EF 7 is also open source. EF 6 codes available on CodePlex but EF 7 is on GitHub along with the upcoming version of ASP.NET.Now we can explore the source code, participate in discussions, raise issues, and submit pull requests to the examine team. Lightweight and extensible

Entity Framework 7 is now very lightweight. It contains only very common features. The components of EF are easy to replace and extend.EF 6.1.3 is about 10 MB and it includes 5MB of entity framework DLL for .NET 4.5. EF 7 comes in much smaller sizes DLLs as compare to EF 6. We will combine the DLLs necessary to support our workflow. Support new Platforms

Entity Framework 7 now supports the following types of application: