Skip to main content

WCF Data Services: Expression of type 'System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectContext' cannot be used for return type 'System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext'

If you try to create a WCF Data Service using the Visual Studio Template(see image below) with an Entity Model created using Entity Framework 6, you’ll end with an exception like the following:

Expression of type 'System.Data.Entity.Core.Objects.ObjectContext' cannot be used for return type 'System.Data.Objects.ObjectContext'

image

The problem is that the WCF Data Services template does not offer support for the new Entity Framework 6 classes. In EF6 the ObjectContext is completely decoupled from the .NET framework. As a result the class no longer lives in the same namespace explaining the exception above.

WCF Data Services Entity Framework Provider

This does not mean you cannot use WCF Data Services with Entity Framework 6. There is a new NuGet package called WCF Data Services Entity Framework Provider. This NuGet package bridges the gap between WCF Data Services 5.6.0 and Entity Framework 6+.

Here are the things you need to do to get this working:

  1. Install the WCF Data Services Entity Framework Provider NuGet package. Since this package has a dependency on WCF Data Services 5.6.0 and Entity Framework 6 or greater, some of the other NuGet packages in your project may be upgraded as well.
  2. Replace the base type of your DataService. For EF 5 or below, your data service should inherit from DataService<T> where T is a DbContext or ObjectContext. For EF 6 or greater, your data service should inherit from EntityFrameworkDataService<T> where T is a DbContext.
Labels:

Popular posts from this blog

Azure DevOps/ GitHub emoji

I’m really bad at remembering emoji’s. So here is cheat sheet with all emoji’s that can be used in tools that support the github emoji markdown markup: All credits go to rcaviers who created this list.
Read more

Kubernetes–Limit your environmental impact

Reducing the carbon footprint and CO2 emission of our (cloud) workloads, is a responsibility of all of us. If you are running a Kubernetes cluster, have a look at Kube-Green . kube-green is a simple Kubernetes operator that automatically shuts down (some of) your pods when you don't need them. A single pod produces about 11 Kg CO2eq per year( here the calculation). Reason enough to give it a try! Installing kube-green in your cluster The easiest way to install the operator in your cluster is through kubectl. We first need to install a cert-manager: kubectl apply -f https://github.com/cert-manager/cert-manager/releases/download/v1.14.5/cert-manager.yaml Remark: Wait a minute before you continue as it can take some time before the cert-manager is up & running inside your cluster. Now we can install the kube-green operator: kubectl apply -f https://github.com/kube-green/kube-green/releases/latest/download/kube-green.yaml Now in the namespace where we want t...
Read more

.NET 8–Keyed/Named Services

A feature that a lot of IoC container libraries support but that was missing in the default DI container provided by Microsoft is the support for Keyed or Named Services. This feature allows you to register the same type multiple times using different names, allowing you to resolve a specific instance based on the circumstances. Although there is some controversy if supporting this feature is a good idea or not, it certainly can be handy. To support this feature a new interface IKeyedServiceProvider got introduced in .NET 8 providing 2 new methods on our ServiceProvider instance: object? GetKeyedService(Type serviceType, object? serviceKey); object GetRequiredKeyedService(Type serviceType, object? serviceKey); To use it, we need to register our service using one of the new extension methods: Resolving the service can be done either through the FromKeyedServices attribute: or by injecting the IKeyedServiceProvider interface and calling the GetRequiredKeyedServic...
Read more