ASP.NET MVC - Scaffolding

Add Entity Framework Support

First step is to install the Entity Framework. Right-click on the project and select NuGet Package Manager → Manage NuGet Packages for Solution…

It will open the ‘NuGet Package Manager’. Search for Entity framework in the search box.

Select the Entity Framework and click ‘Install’ button. It will open the Preview dialog.

Click Ok to continue.

Click ‘I Accept’ button to start installation.

Once the Entity Framework is installed you will see the message in the out window as shown in the above screenshot.

Add Model

To add a model, right-click on the Models folder in the solution explorer and select Add → Class. You will see the ‘Add New Item’ dialog.

Select Class in the middle pan and enter Employee.cs in the name field.

Add some properties to Employee class using the following code.

using System;

namespace MVCScaffoldingDemo.Models {
   public class Employee{
      public int ID { get; set; }
      public string Name { get; set; }
      public DateTime JoiningDate { get; set; }
      public int Age { get; set; }
   }
}

Add DBContext

We have an Employee Model, now we need to add another class, which will communicate with Entity Framework to retrieve and save the data. Following is the complete code in Employee.cs file.

using System;
using System.Data.Entity;

namespace MVCScaffoldingDemo.Models{
   public class Employee{
      public int ID { get; set; }
      public string Name { get; set; }
      public DateTime JoiningDate { get; set; }
      public int Age { get; set; }
   }
	
   public class EmpDBContext : DbContext{
      public DbSet<Employee> Employees { get; set; }
   }
}

As you can see ‘EmpDBContext’ is derived from an EF class known as ‘DbContext’. In this class, we have one property with the name DbSet, which basically represents the entity which you want to query and save.

Now let’s build a solution and you will see the message when the project is successfully build.

Add a Scaffolded Item

To add a scaffold, right-click on Controllers folder in the Solution Explorer and select Add → New Scaffolded Item.

It will display the Add Scaffold dialog.

Select MVC 5 Controller with views, using Entity Framework in the middle pane and click ‘Add’ button, which will display the Add Controller dialog.

Select Employee from the Model class dropdown and EmpDBContext from the Data context class dropdown. You will also see that the controller name is selected by default.

Click ‘Add’ button to continue and you will see the following code in the EmployeesController, which is created by Visual Studio using Scaffolding.

using System.Data.Entity;
using System.Linq;
using System.Net;
using System.Web.Mvc;
using MVCScaffoldingDemo.Models;

namespace MVCScaffoldingDemo.Controllers {
   public class EmployeesController : Controller{
      private EmpDBContext db = new EmpDBContext();
      
      // GET: Employees
      public ActionResult Index(){
         return View(db.Employees.ToList());
      }
      
      // GET: Employees/Details/5
      public ActionResult Details(int? id){
         if (id == null){
            return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest);
         }
			
         Employee employee = db.Employees.Find(id);
			
         if (employee == null){
            return HttpNotFound();
         }
         return View(employee);
      }
      
      // GET: Employees/Create
      public ActionResult Create(){
         return View();
      }
      
      // POST: Employees/Create
      // To protect from overposting attacks, please enable the specific
      properties you want to bind to, for
      // more details see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=317598.
      [HttpPost]
      [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
		
      public ActionResult Create([Bind(Include = "ID,Name,JoiningDate,Age")]
      Employee employee){
         if (ModelState.IsValid){
            db.Employees.Add(employee);
            db.SaveChanges();
            return RedirectToAction("Index");
         }
         return View(employee);
      }
      
      // GET: Employees/Edit/5
      public ActionResult Edit(int? id){
         if (id == null){
            return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest);
         }
			
         Employee employee = db.Employees.Find(id);
			
         if (employee == null){
            return HttpNotFound();
         }
         return View(employee);
      }
      
      // POST: Employees/Edit/5
      // To protect from overposting attacks, please enable the specific
      properties you want to bind to, for
      // more details see http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=317598.
      [HttpPost]
      [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
      public ActionResult Edit([Bind(Include = "ID,Name,JoiningDate,Age")]Employee employee){
         if (ModelState.IsValid){
            db.Entry(employee).State = EntityState.Modified;
            db.SaveChanges();
            return RedirectToAction("Index");
         }
         return View(employee);
      }
      
      // GET: Employees/Delete/5
      public ActionResult Delete(int? id){
         if (id == null){
            return new HttpStatusCodeResult(HttpStatusCode.BadRequest);
         }
			
         Employee employee = db.Employees.Find(id);
			
         if (employee == null){
            return HttpNotFound();
         }
         return View(employee);
      }
      
      // POST: Employees/Delete/5
      [HttpPost, ActionName("Delete")]
      [ValidateAntiForgeryToken]
		
      public ActionResult DeleteConfirmed(int id){
         Employee employee = db.Employees.Find(id);
         db.Employees.Remove(employee);
         db.SaveChanges();
         return RedirectToAction("Index");
      }
      
      protected override void Dispose(bool disposing){
         if (disposing){
            db.Dispose();
         }
			
         base.Dispose(disposing);
      }
   }
}

Run your application and specify the following URL http://localhost:59359/employees. You will see the following output.

You can see there is no data in the View, because we have not added any records to the database, which is created by Visual Studio.

Let’s add one record from the browser by clicking the ‘Create New’ link, it will display the Create view.

Let’s add some data in the following field.

Click the ‘Create’ button and it will update the Index view.

You can see that the new record is also added to the database.

As you can see that we have implemented the same example by using Scaffolding, which is a much easier way to create your Views and Action methods from your model class.

Previous Page Print Page