22 Bugs

Many times when developing databases, you would need some kind of post-deployment script, which is basically a script that will run after every time you deploy your database schema. Ideally post-deployment script should run automatically each time you deploy database.

In this post I explain how to create post-deployment script when working with EF Migrations.

Step 1:

First you need to create an .sql file which will hold your SQL script. I prefer to place it in the Migrations folder and call it Seed.sql:

Please note that Seed.sql is a pure SQL script and as such cannot contain SQLCMD commands, such as go, otherwise you will get an error when trying to Update-Database.

Step 2:

Next you should make sure to set the Build Action to “Embedded Resource”:

Step 3:

Now the last part is go into your Configuration.cs and call the script from there, as so:

protected override void Seed(ExampleDbContext context)
{
    base.Seed(context);

    using (var stream = System.Reflection.Assembly.GetExecutingAssembly().GetManifestResourceStream("Example.Migrations.Seed.sql"))
    {
        using (var ms = new StreamReader(stream))
        {
            var sql = ms.ReadToEnd();
            context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(sql);
        }
    }
}

That’s it! Simple and effective.