Are there any naming conventions for multiple inverse properties in EF Core or are attributes necessary?

Question

This article shows the following table example:

public class Course
{
    public int CourseId { get; set; }
    public string CourseName { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("OnlineTeacher")]
    public int? OnlineTeacherId { get; set; }
    public Teacher OnlineTeacher { get; set; }

    [ForeignKey("ClassRoomTeacher")]
    public int? ClassRoomTeacherId { get; set; }
    public Teacher ClassRoomTeacher { get; set; }
}

public class Teacher
{
    public int TeacherId { get; set; }
    public string Name { get; set; }

    [InverseProperty("OnlineTeacher")]
    public ICollection<Course> OnlineCourses { get; set; }
    [InverseProperty("ClassRoomTeacher")]
    public ICollection<Course> ClassRoomCourses { get; set; }
}

I found that I could remove the [ForeignKey(*)] attributes and they still get created on the Courses table properly. However, if I remove BOTH [InverseProperty] attributes, EF throws an error when i build. Are there naming conventions for this just like the foreign keys ? My goal is to follow the naming conventions closely and reduce the amount of attribute/fluent based configuration.

Answer 1

if I remove BOTH [InverseProperty] attributes, EF throws an error when i build. Are there naming conventions for this just like the foreign keys?

There is no naming convention defined by EF when many assocaitions of same type (eg 1-to-many) exit between two entities.

For example when you have one association between EntityA and EntityB . Let say it exists 1-to-* relation between EntityA and EntityB , it works well when you respect the convention. But when you put another 1-to-* relation between EntityA and EntityB , EF will need your help to know how associations are related. So you must use InverseProperty data annotation attribute or define the full relations through fluent configuration.