Creating POCOs in .Net Core 2.0

Summary

I’ve shown how to generate POCOs (Plain Old C# Objects) using the scaffold tool for .Net Core 1 in an earlier post.  Now I’m going to show how to do it in Visual Studio 2017 with Core 2.0.

Install NuGet Packages

First, you’ll need to install the right NuGet Packages.  I prefer to use the command line because I’ve been doing this so long that my fingers type the command without me thinking about it.  If you’re not comfortable with the command line NuGet window, you can use the NuGet Package Manager Settings window under the project you want to create your POCOs in.  If you want, you can copy the commands here and paste them into the NuGet Package Manager Console window.  Follow these instructions:

  1. Create a .Net Core 2.0 library project in Visual Studio 2017.
  2. Type or copy and paste the following NuGet commands into the Nuget Package Manager Console window:
install-package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer
install-package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools
install-package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools.DotNet

If you open up your NuGet Dependencies treeview, you should see the following:

Execute the Scaffold Command

In the same package manager console window use the following command to generate your POCOs: 

Scaffold-DbContext "Data Source=YOURSQLINSTANCE;Initial Catalog=DATABASENAME;Integrated Security=True" Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer -OutputDir POCODirectory

You’ll need to update the datasource and initial catalog to point to your database.  If the command executes without error, then you’ll see a directory named “POCODirectory” that contains cs files for each table in the database you just converted.  There will also be a context that contains all the model builder entity mappings.  You can use this file “as-is” or you can split the mappings into individual files.

My process consists of generating these files in a temporary project, followed by copying each table POCO that I want to use in my project.  Then I copy the model builder mappings for each table that I use in my project.

What This Does not Cover

Any views, stored procedures or functions that you want to access with Entity Framework will not show up with this tool.  You’ll still need to create the result POCO for views, stored procedures and functions by hand (or find a custom tool).  Using EF with stored procedures is not recommended.  Anyone who has to deal with legacy code and legacy database will run into a situation where they will need to interface with an existing stored procedure.

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