Basic Save

Learn how to add, modify, and remove data using your context and entity classes.

Tip

You can view this article's sample on GitHub.

Adding Data

Use the DbSet.Add method to add new instances of your entity classes. The data will be inserted in the database when you call SaveChanges.

using (var context = new BloggingContext())
{
    var blog = new Blog { Url = "http://example.com" };
    context.Blogs.Add(blog);
    context.SaveChanges();
}

Tip

The Add, Attach, and Update methods all work on the full graph of entities passed to them, as described in the Related Data section. Alternately, the EntityEntry.State property can be used to set the state of just a single entity. For example, context.Entry(blog).State = EntityState.Modified.

Updating Data

EF will automatically detect changes made to an existing entity that is tracked by the context. This includes entities that you load/query from the database, and entities that were previously added and saved to the database.

Simply modify the values assigned to properties and then call SaveChanges.

using (var context = new BloggingContext())
{
    var blog = context.Blogs.First();
    blog.Url = "http://example.com/blog";
    context.SaveChanges();
}

Deleting Data

Use the DbSet.Remove method to delete instances of your entity classes.

If the entity already exists in the database, it will be deleted during SaveChanges. If the entity has not yet been saved to the database (that is, it is tracked as added) then it will be removed from the context and will no longer be inserted when SaveChanges is called.

using (var context = new BloggingContext())
{
    var blog = context.Blogs.First();
    context.Blogs.Remove(blog);
    context.SaveChanges();
}

Multiple Operations in a single SaveChanges

You can combine multiple Add/Update/Remove operations into a single call to SaveChanges.

Note

For most database providers, SaveChanges is transactional. This means all the operations will either succeed or fail and the operations will never be left partially applied.

using (var context = new BloggingContext())
{
    // seeding database
    context.Blogs.Add(new Blog { Url = "http://example.com/blog" });
    context.Blogs.Add(new Blog { Url = "http://example.com/another_blog" });
    context.SaveChanges();
}

using (var context = new BloggingContext())
{
    // add
    context.Blogs.Add(new Blog { Url = "http://example.com/blog_one" });
    context.Blogs.Add(new Blog { Url = "http://example.com/blog_two" });

    // update
    var firstBlog = context.Blogs.First();
    firstBlog.Url = "";

    // remove
    var lastBlog = context.Blogs.OrderBy(e => e.BlogId).Last();
    context.Blogs.Remove(lastBlog);

    context.SaveChanges();
}