Store data from database to local using entity framework 6

Question

I have data stored in a MySQL database and I'm accessing it through entity framework 6. What I want to do is to extract the data and store it in a server-independent manner, so that I can use this data in the future for bootstraping of a larger database (where the data from MySQL is only a small portion of). The target database will not be MySQL.

The MySQL data was there before, so I used Database First. For the new database I use Code First. The MySQL data also needs some clean-ups, what is done in code. So the workflow is:

1. Read data from MySQL with Entity Framework database first
2. Optimize/enhance/correct it in code
3. Store in another database using code first

So my first thought was using SQLite, but sadly, Code First is not supported .

Using some other format (ie XML/DataSets/CSV) to store the data would require me to reimplement the import code.

Right now I didn't find another embedded database with Entity Framework support. As Entity Framework is meant for relational databases, I would say that Redis (or other NoSQL dbs) won't do the trick.

I also thought if "converting" H2 using IKVM.NET and then using H2 as SQLite replacement would be an option -- but there's the risk that this might fail due to some internal dependency not supported by IKVM.NET.

So I would be glad to get answers to the following questions:

1. Would the H2 way work? Is there even a stable/working ADO.NET provider?
2. I wouldn't care much about the local storage format (could also be JSON etc.) -- is there anything not-SQL, but providing Enitity Framework support?
3. Did I miss something? Is there a way I just didn't see yet?

Here are some related questions I stumbled upon which deal with the possibility of using Entity Framework to use files:

• Entity Framework with text files (no database!)
• A list of Entity Framework providers for various databases
• Entity Framework with XML Files
• Microsoft Entity Framework using a flat file as a data source

Answer 1

There is no complete solution, but there are many ready-made parts:

This project wraps the compiled Jar of H2 after IKVM.Net with classes that implement the ADO.Net interface to allow for easy use in .Net projects:
https://code.google.com/p/h2sharp/

EF provider for SharpHSQL (which doesn't work, because, SharpHSQL is too old, it's port of Hypersonic 1.4):
https://github.com/ArsenShnurkov/SharpHSQL/tree/master/src/SharpHsql.Linq

here is the description of build process:
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!topic/h2-database/QAvFqbyd4_0
https://code.google.com/p/h2sharp/wiki/BuildingH2Sharp

The authors of above code did a great job of writing such huge amount, so i think it's nothing wrong with writing some more to finish your task.