DKNet

DKNet.EfCore.Relational.Helpers

Relational table metadata, existence, connection and one-shot schema helpers for .NET developers writing infrastructure code.

✨ Why use it?

• Resolve mapped table and schema names without a database round trip.
• Ask the database catalog whether a mapped table exists without probing entity rows.
• Use the context connection for ADO.NET or provision an empty model schema through an explicit table gate.

🚀 Quick Start

Use a .NET 10 console project. Install the package, then replace Program.cs with the example.

dotnet new console -f net10.0 -n EfCoreDemo
cd EfCoreDemo
dotnet add package DKNet.EfCore.Relational.Helpers
dotnet add package Npgsql.EntityFrameworkCore.PostgreSQL --version 10.0.3

using DKNet.EfCore.Relational.Helpers;
using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;

var options = new DbContextOptionsBuilder<DemoDb>()
    .UseNpgsql("Host=localhost;Database=unused;Username=unused;Password=unused").Options;
using var db = new DemoDb(options);
Console.WriteLine(db.GetTableName<Item>()); // (, Items)

public sealed class DemoDb(DbContextOptions<DemoDb> options) : DbContext(options)
{
    public DbSet<Item> Items => Set<Item>();
}
public sealed class Item { public int Id { get; set; } }

Run with dotnet run. This metadata-only example does not connect to the placeholder endpoint.

🏗️ Architecture

These static extension methods run in the caller process with the existing DbContext. Provider services execute catalog queries and schema creation; there is no helper-specific service or cache. The project references Extensions and EF Core Relational.

🔄 How it works

The Quick Start only reads metadata, so its placeholder connection is never opened. Unmapped types return (null, null); SQL Server alone supplies dbo when the model supplies no schema. Catalog and DDL operations are separate feature pages.

🧩 Features

• Resolve an entity table and schema — Read the physical table name and schema from EF Core model metadata without opening a connection.
• Open the context connection for ADO.NET — Get the connection already associated with the DbContext, opening it when its state is Closed.
• Check whether a mapped table exists — Query INFORMATION_SCHEMA.TABLES using the entity mapped table and, when known, schema.
• Create a model schema behind one table gate — Use CreateTableAsync<TEntity> only for one-shot provisioning against an empty relational schema.

🔗 Related packages

• DKNet.EfCore.Extensions — reach for it to apply model configurations, filters and seeding.
• DKNet.EfCore.Abstractions — reach for it to define the domain model contracts.

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