Surprised that Entity Framework is saving a detached Entity correctly

Question

I have an entity class Timecard , I get this entity from this method:

public Timecard GetTimeCardForPerson(long timecardId) 
{
    return timecardContext.First(item => item.TimeCardId = timeCardId);
}

timecardContext is of type TimecardContext: DbContext .

I later make a change to the Timecard entity, the Timecard entity has a property:

public virtual ICollection<TimecardRow> TimeCardRows { get; set; }

which is initialized, in Timecard's constructor to a HashSet like so:

this.TimeCardRows = new HashSet<TimecardRow>();

I add a child TimecardRow I then call another method and this is its exact implementation and pass it the same Timecard instance as is returned from GetTimeCardForPerson :

public void SaveTimecard(Timecard timeCard)
{
    timecardContext.Entry(timeCard).State = timeCard.TimecardId == 0
        ? EntityState.Added
        : EntityState.Unchanged;


    timecardContext.SaveChanges();
}

The passed in Timecard timeCard argument is not attached to the timecardContext and has a TimecardId > 0.

I am surprised that my new TimecardRow saves successfully as Entry(timeCard.State) is set to EntityState.Unchanged .

The EntityState.Unchanged tells my timecardContext that there is nothing to change, does it not? But all the same, the TimecardRow I added is inserted into the database when the SaveTimecard method is called.

Answer 1

The EntityState.Unchanged tells the context that nothing has changed for the Timecard entity.

The TimecardRow is a separate entity which EF will track separately so a call to SaveChanges will insert that entity.

The above assumes that the Timecard is already attached when passed to the Save method (which it will be if it's the same instance returned from the GetTimeCardForPerson method).

If the Id check in the Save method is there to cope with both detached and attached entities, would it be better to leave the state alone unless it is an id of 0?