EF Core Database.EnsureCreated get creating table SQL and without sending request to database

Question

I use EF Core - Database.EnsureCreated to create table by C# class, but now I'd like to get only creating table and columns SQL and without sending request to database.

eg

public class ApplicationDbContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Dto> Dtos{ get; set; }
}

public class Dto
{
  [Key]
  [StringLength(10)]
    public string ID{ get; set; }
  [StringLength(100)]
  [Required]
    public string Name{ get; set; }
  [Required]
  public int Age{ get; set; }
}

db.Database.EnsureDeleted();

Expected result :

create table Dto
{
  ID nvarchar(10) primary key not null,
  Name nvarchar(100) not null,
  Age int not null
}

What I tried?

I did open SSMS profile and get SQL from EF Core, but it needs to send request to database.

Answer 1

My usual approach to these types of questions is to poke around in the source code . I found the implementation of .EnsureCreated() , then noticed that there is a public method to .GenerateCreateScript() on the same type. Searching the entire code base for calls to that method reveals an extension method on DatabaseFacade . So all you need to do is;

var sqlSource = db.Database.GenerateCreateScript();

However using google to search for that method doesn't reveal any results in the official documentation. The "proper" way to create a production database is to create migrations, then create an sql script to apply them.

Answer 2

You can use the dotnet EF CLI to run the migrations script:

dotnet ef migrations script -i -o "C:\MYFOLDER\dbscript.sql"

REF: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/cli/dotnet