Shadow Properties In Entity Framework 7

To create shadow property, the first step is to override "OnModelCreating" event of DbContext and we can define shadow property by using "Property" method of modelBuilder.Entity class. Here, if the name passed to the "Property" method matches with the name of the existing entity model class property, then the Entity framework uses this existing property rather than creating a new shadow property. The following code helps us to create shadow properties “CreatedDate” in the User class. How to use Shadow Property

As mentioned earlier, Shadow properties are not a part of the entity model class, and the value and state of Shadow properties are maintained by the Change Tracker API. Modify the value of Shadow Properties

Change tracker API is responsible for obtaining and changing the value of Shadow properties by using the following code. We can modify the value of shadow property. In the above code, “context” is our DbContent class object and “user” is User entity object. Use Shadow property with LINQ query

Shadow property can also be used in LINQ query by using “EF.Property” static method. For example, the following code can be used to retrieve user list order by created date. One of the common cases where we can use the shadow property is automatic set up property value when savechange method is called. For example, "CreatedDate" column is part of all tables and we want to set this property value at the time of savechange automatically. In this case, we can create the shadow property and assign its value at the time of performing a save changes method called.

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