EF Core Sidekick: Using this extension for auto code generation

What's New

Latest changes:

• Supports .NET 9 and EF Core 9 (Supports SQL Server, PostgreSQL, and SQLite databases).
• Fixes other internal bugs to improve user experience.

For a comprehensive list of all new features added in recent updates, see What's New at https://docs.devmagic.com/efsidekick/#whats-new.

Introduction

EF Core Sidekick is a Visual Studio extension that enhances the power of auto code generation in Visual Studio. It provides a set of tools and templates for generating EF Core entities and derived DbContext from existing database, and then generating DTOs (data transfer objects), services and REST APIs from the entities.

What can you do with EF Core Sidekick

Generate entities from an existing database

Automatically generates entities based on the tables, views, functions, or (SQL Server only) stored procedures in the existing database. While selecting tables, it is possible to enable or disable selection of associated tables and references. When generating entities, table inheritance relationship mappings (such as TPT) are supported. The class names, property names and code generation paths are customizable.

Generate DTOs from an existing entities

Automatically generates a DTO (data transfer object) based on one or multiple selected entities. You can select whether to create a built-in DTO mapper, or use an external mapper, for mapping entities to DTOs and vice-versa. The DataContract attribute can be automatically added in the generated DTO class.

Scaffold services and APIs from an entity

Scaffolds basic CRUD services and APIs based on entities auto-generated using this extension (EF Core Sidekick), entities generated using a third-party extension, or entities manually created. The newly generated APIs can quickly apply the existing authentication and authorization system. And sensitive data (such as passwords) can be auto-processed (hidden) in the APIs to ensure the data transmission security.

Scaffold APIs

Scaffolds APIs based on existing interfaces or services. The newly generated APIs can quickly apply the existing authentication and authorization system. And sensitive data (such as passwords) can be auto-processed (hidden) in the APIs to ensure the data transmission security.

Add custom code

The custom code functionality, such as adding using statements, inheritance, class attributes, and code snippets, can be automatically applied to the generated code in the current and subsequent code regenerations. This ensures the maintainability of your project, continually saving you time in the long term.

Full-featured SnapDevelop

The full-featured SnapDevelop is available as a FREE low-code IDE for rapidly developing cloud-native apps. It utilizes a model-driven approach to automatically generate full-stack applications, and supports subsequent development and maintenance, including compilation, debugging, testing, publishing, and deployment. Install SnapDevelop to experience its full productivity features: https://www.devmagic.com.

SnapDevelop provides a comprehensive suite of visual designers that help you simplify the creation of the entities, data filters, services & APIs, and views. Instead of paying attention to the syntax details you can now just focus on the real business.

Designers for entities - Support standard, owned entity & entity inherence; Support entities relationships design; Configure data validation without writing LINQs

Designers for filters - Configure the filters without writing the LINQs; Configure multiple filters for each entity; Configure simple or complex filters.

Designer for services & APIs - Configure the services and APIs for each entity; Configure the sorting rule for database and output data; Add services with customized Filters; Easy to create new or inherit from an existing service.

Designer for views - You can freely associate entity or query models for view design, add UI components, and customize layouts.

Code customization - Add customized code snippets and enable easy integration with existing authorization framework.

Documentation

For EF Core Sidekick, see: https://docs.devmagic.com/efsidekick

For the full-featured SnapDevelop, see: https://docs.devmagic.com