ID Column Names in MVC

In MVC (according to the tutorials) the core framework will automatically generate foreign keys for related tables. Example:

    public int CourseID { get; set; }      public string Title { get; set; }      public int Credits { get; set; }      public int DepartmentID { get; set; }              <-----FK to Departments      public Department Department { get; set; }        public int DepartmentID { get; set; }              <-----Primary Key for Departments      public string Name { get; set; }      public decimal Budget { get; set; }      public DateTime StartDate { get; set; }      public int? InstructorID { get; set; }  

For this to work, do the columns in the two tables need to have identical names? I.E. DepartmentID in both tables.

Or, failing that, how would I get EF to generate the FK when the two columns do NOT have identical names? Example:

    Department Table:      public Guid Id { get; set; }                  <-----PK for department table      public string DepartmentID { get; set; }      public string DepartmentName { get; set; }      public Guid? DepartmentManager { get; set; }  <-----FK to employee table        Employee Table:                               <-----PK for employee table      public Guid ID { get; set; }      public string EmployeeID { get; set; }      public string LastName { get; set; }      public string FirstName { get; set; }      public string MiddleName { get; set; }  

How do I get the framework to associate the FK DepartmentManager in Department Table to the PK ID in Employee Table?

NOTE: I'm kinda using FK and navigation property interchangeably here. What I'm really looking for is how to link the two tables within the app.

I think this is the best way to explain it. The code snippet above include all the relevant bits for the two tables/models. The only thing else omitted is the actual cshtml and cshtml.cs page.

I store the value in the EmployeeID - which is the PK - from the Employee Table in the DepartmentManager (Guid) column in the Department Table.

Example: Department is Finance. Department Manager is Joe, Blow. DepartmentManager column in DepartmentTable holds the EmployeeID for Joe Blow from the Employee table.

In SQL I would do this as a LEFT JOIN. However, since I am doing code first, the framework supposedly will make that connection for me.

Thanks, John

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/66846195/id-column-names-in-mvc March 29, 2021 at 05:03AM