Today, the .NET data team announces the first preview release of EF Core 7.0 (EF7). This release contains mostly bug fixes and foundation work for larger features that will land in later previews. Be sure to read the full plan for EF7 to learn what’s on the roadmap.
Prerequisites
- EF7 currently targets .NET 6. This will likely be updated to .NET 7 as we near the release.
- EF7 will not run on .NET Framework.
EF7 is the successor to EF Core 6.0, not to be confused with EF6. If you are considering upgrading from EF6, please read our guide to port from EF6 to EF Core.
How to get EF7 previews
EF7 is distributed exclusively as a set of NuGet packages. For example, to add the SQL Server provider to your project, you can use the following command using the dotnet tool:
dotnet add package Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer --version 7.0.0-preview.1.22076.6This following table links to the preview 1 versions of the EF Core packages and describes what they are used for.
| Package | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore | The main EF Core package that is independent of specific database providers |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer | Database provider for Microsoft SQL Server and SQL Azure |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer.NetTopologySuite | SQL Server support for spatial types |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite | Database provider for SQLite that includes the native binary for the database engine |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite.Core | Database provider for SQLite without a packaged native binary |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite.NetTopologySuite | SQLite support for spatial types |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Cosmos | Database provider for Azure Cosmos DB |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.InMemory | The in-memory database provider |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Tools | EF Core PowerShell commands for the Visual Studio Package Manager Console; use this to integrate tools like scaffolding and migrations with Visual Studio |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Design | Shared design-time components for EF Core tools |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Proxies | Lazy-loading and change-tracking proxies |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Abstractions | Decoupled EF Core abstractions; use this for features like extended data annotations defined by EF Core |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational | Shared EF Core components for relational database providers |
| Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Analyzers | C# analyzers for EF Core |
We also published the 7.0 preview 1 release of the Microsoft.Data.Sqlite provider for ADO.NET.
Installing the EF7 Command Line Interface (CLI)
Before you can execute EF7 Core migration or scaffolding commands, you’ll have to install the CLI package as either a global or local tool.
To install the preview tool globally, install with:
dotnet tool install --global dotnet-ef --version 7.0.0-preview.1.22076.6If you already have the tool installed, you can upgrade it with the following command:
dotnet tool update --global dotnet-ef --version 7.0.0-preview.1.22076.6It’s possible to use this new version of the EF7 CLI with projects that use older versions of the EF Core runtime.
What’s new in EF7 Preview 1
The list of issues that are addressed in preview 1 is available on GitHub. There are over 80 issues addressed. We’d like to extend a special thanks to our community contributors to this preview, including:
- @0xced
- @bobbyangers
- @cocowalla
- @EamonHetherton
- @ErikEJ
- @midgleyc
- @stefannikolei
- @stevendarby
- @vonzshik
- @yecril71pl
- @yosoyhabacuc
Daily builds
EF7 previews are aligned with .NET 7 previews. These previews tend to lag behind the latest work on EF7. Consider using the daily builds instead to get the most up-to-date EF7 features and bug fixes.
As with the previews, the daily builds require .NET 6.
The .NET Data Community Standup
The .NET data team is now live streaming every other Wednesday at 10am Pacific Time, 1pm Eastern Time, or 17:00 UTC. Join the stream to ask questions about the data-related topic of your choice, including the latest preview release.
- Watch our YouTube playlist of previous shows
- Visit the .NET Community Standup page to preview upcoming shows
- Submit your ideas for a guest, product, demo, or other content to cover
Documentation and feedback
The starting point for all EF Core documentation is docs.microsoft.com/ef/.
Please file issues found and any other feedback on the dotnet/efcore GitHub repo.
Helpful links
The following links are provided for easy reference and access.
EF Core Community Standup Playlist:
Main documentation:
Issues and feature requests for EF Core:
Entity Framework Roadmap:
Bi-weekly updates: https://github.com/dotnet/efcore/issues/27185
Thank you from the team
A big thank you from the EF team to everyone who has used and contributed to EF over the years!
Welcome to EF7.
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