Dynamically loading DbSet to DbContext

Question

How do I dynamically load into an EF7 DbContext a X number of classes without explicitly writing them in a DbContext class ?

For example, I tried to avoid it like this:

public class MyDbContextClass : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Category> categories {get;set;}
    public DbSet<Product> products {get;set;}
    ...
}

So it could be great to load Category and Product dynamically (without knowing if I have 2 or 20 classes).

Is it possible?

Answer 1

You should use this method:

• All entities must inherit from BaseType...

  public static void RegisterAllEntities<BaseType>(this ModelBuilder modelBuilder, params Assembly[] assemblies)
  {
      var types = assemblies.SelectMany(a => a.GetExportedTypes())
                            .Where(c => c.IsClass && !c.IsAbstract && c.IsPublic && typeof(BaseType).IsAssignableFrom(c));
  
      foreach (var type in types)
          modelBuilder.Entity(type);
  }
  

Answer 2

dbContext.Set<T>() creates an instance of DbSet<T> as long as T is a type in your model (i.e. you have to add the entity type in OnModelCreating).

See the source code for .Set<T>.