Code-first migration: How to set default value for new property?

Question

I am using EF6 for storing instances of the report class in my database. The database already contains data. Say I wanted to add a property to report,

public class report {     // ... some previous properties      // ... new property:     public string newProperty{ get; set; } } 

Now if I go to the package-manager console and execute

add-migration Report-added-newProperty update-database 

I will get a file in the '/Migrations' folder adding a newProperty column to the table. This works fine. However, on the older entries in the database, the value for the newProperty is now an empty string. But I want it to be, e.g., "old".

So my question is: How do I set default values for new properties (of any type) in the migration script (or elsewhere)?

Answer 1

If you see the generated migration code you will see AddColumn

AddColumn("dbo.report", "newProperty", c => c.String(nullable: false)); 

You can add defaultValue

AddColumn("dbo.report", "newProperty",             c => c.String(nullable: false, defaultValue: "old")); 

Or add defaultValueSql

AddColumn("dbo.report", "newProperty",            c => c.String(nullable: false, defaultValueSql: "GETDATE()")); 

Answer 2

Hope it helps someone. Putting everything together from previous answers (example using a boolean property):

1) Add a new property to the entity.

/// <summary> /// Determines if user is enabled or not. Default value is true /// </summary> public bool IsEnabled { get; set; } 

2) Run the command below to add the new change in the migrations.

add-migration addIsEnabledColumn 

3) A migration file is created from the command above, open that file.

4) Set the default value.

public override void Up() {         AddColumn(             "dbo.AspNetUsers",              "IsEnabled",              c => c.Boolean(                 nullable: false,                  defaultValue: true             )         ); }