Update Row if it Exists Else Insert Logic with Entity Framework

Question

Does anyone have suggestions on the most efficient way to implement "update row if it exists else insert" logic using Entity Framework?

Answer 1

If you are working with attached object (object loaded from the same instance of the context) you can simply use:

if (context.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntry(myEntity).State == EntityState.Detached)
{
    context.MyEntities.AddObject(myEntity);
}

// Attached object tracks modifications automatically

context.SaveChanges();

If you can use any knowledge about the object's key you can use something like this:

if (myEntity.Id != 0)
{
    context.MyEntities.Attach(myEntity);
    context.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(myEntity, EntityState.Modified);
}
else
{
    context.MyEntities.AddObject(myEntity);
}

context.SaveChanges();

If you can't decide existance of the object by its Id you must execute lookup query:

var id = myEntity.Id;
if (context.MyEntities.Any(e => e.Id == id))
{
    context.MyEntities.Attach(myEntity);
    context.ObjectStateManager.ChangeObjectState(myEntity, EntityState.Modified);
}
else
{
    context.MyEntities.AddObject(myEntity);
}

context.SaveChanges();

Answer 2

As of Entity Framework 4.3, there is an AddOrUpdate method at namespace System.Data.Entity.Migrations:

public static void AddOrUpdate<TEntity>(
    this IDbSet<TEntity> set,
    params TEntity[] entities
)
where TEntity : class

which by the doc:

Adds or updates entities by key when SaveChanges is called. Equivalent to an "upsert" operation from database terminology. This method can be useful when seeding data using Migrations.

---

To answer the comment by @Smashing1978, I will paste relevant parts from link provided by @Colin

The job of AddOrUpdate is to ensure that you don’t create duplicates when you seed data during development.

First, it will execute a query in your database looking for a record where whatever you supplied as a key (first parameter) matches the mapped column value (or values) supplied in the AddOrUpdate. So this is a little loosey-goosey for matching but perfectly fine for seeding design time data.

More importantly, if a match is found then the update will update all and null out any that weren’t in your AddOrUpdate.

That said, I have a situation where I am pulling data from an external service and inserting or updating existing values by primary key (and my local data for consumers is read-only) - been using AddOrUpdate in production for more than 6 months now and so far no problems.

Answer 3

The magic happens when calling SaveChanges() and depends on the current EntityState. If the entity has an EntityState.Added, it will be added to the database, if it has an EntityState.Modified, it will be updated in the database. So you can implement an InsertOrUpdate() method as follows:

public void InsertOrUpdate(Blog blog) 
{ 
    using (var context = new BloggingContext()) 
    { 
        context.Entry(blog).State = blog.BlogId == 0 ? 
                                   EntityState.Added : 
                                   EntityState.Modified; 

        context.SaveChanges(); 
    } 
}

More about EntityState

If you can't check on Id = 0 to determine if it's a new entity or not, check the answer of Ladislav Mrnka.

Answer 4

If you know that you're using the same context and not detaching any entities, you can make a generic version like this:

public void InsertOrUpdate<T>(T entity, DbContext db) where T : class
{
    if (db.Entry(entity).State == EntityState.Detached)
        db.Set<T>().Add(entity);

    // If an immediate save is needed, can be slow though
    // if iterating through many entities:
    db.SaveChanges(); 
}

db can of course be a class field, or the method can be made static and an extension, but this is the basics.

Answer 5

Ladislav's answer was close but I had to made a couple of modifications to get this to work in EF6 (database-first). I extended my data context with my on AddOrUpdate method and so far this appears to be working well with detached objects:

using System.Data.Entity;

[....]

public partial class MyDBEntities {

  public void AddOrUpdate(MyDBEntities ctx, DbSet set, Object obj, long ID) {
      if (ID != 0) {
          set.Attach(obj);
          ctx.Entry(obj).State = EntityState.Modified;
      }
      else {
          set.Add(obj);
      }
  }
[....]

Answer 6

Check existing row with Any.

    public static void insertOrUpdateCustomer(Customer customer)
    {
        using (var db = getDb())
        {

            db.Entry(customer).State = !db.Customer.Any(f => f.CustomerId == customer.CustomerId) ? EntityState.Added : EntityState.Modified;
            db.SaveChanges();

        }

    }

Answer 7

In my opinion it is worth to say that with the newly released EntityGraphOperations for Entity Framework Code First you can save yourself from writing some repetitive codes for defining the states of all entities in the graph. I am the author of this product. And I have published it in the github, code-project (includes a step-by-step demonstration and a sample project is ready for downloading) and nuget.

It will automatically set the state of the entities to Added or Modified. And you will manually choose which entities must be deleted if it is not exist anymore.

The example:

Let’s say I have get a Person object. Person could has many phones, a Document and could has a spouse.

public class Person
{
     public int Id { get; set; }
     public string FirstName { get; set; }
     public string LastName { get; set; }
     public string MiddleName { get; set; }
     public int Age { get; set; }
     public int DocumentId {get; set;}

     public virtual ICollection<Phone> Phones { get; set; }
     public virtual Document Document { get; set; }
     public virtual PersonSpouse PersonSpouse { get; set; }
}

I want to determine the state of all entities which is included in the graph.

context.InsertOrUpdateGraph(person)
       .After(entity =>
       {
            // Delete missing phones.
            entity.HasCollection(p => p.Phones)
               .DeleteMissingEntities();

            // Delete if spouse is not exist anymore.
            entity.HasNavigationalProperty(m => m.PersonSpouse)
                  .DeleteIfNull();
       });

Also as you know unique key properties could play role while defining the state of Phone entity. For such special purposes we have ExtendedEntityTypeConfiguration<> class, which inherits from EntityTypeConfiguration<>. If we want to use such special configurations then we must inherit our mapping classes from ExtendedEntityTypeConfiguration<>, rather than EntityTypeConfiguration<>. For example:

public class PhoneMap: ExtendedEntityTypeConfiguration<Phone>
    {
        public PhoneMap()
        {
             // Primary Key
             this.HasKey(m => m.Id);
              …
             // Unique keys
             this.HasUniqueKey(m => new { m.Prefix, m.Digits });
        }
    }

That’s all.

Answer 8

Insert else update both

public void InsertUpdateData()
{
//Here TestEntities is the class which is given from "Save entity connection setting in web.config"
TestEntities context = new TestEntities();

var query = from data in context.Employee
            orderby data.name
            select data;

foreach (Employee details in query)
{
    if (details.id == 1)
    {
        //Assign the new values to name whose id is 1
        details.name = "Sanjay";
        details. Surname="Desai";
        details.address=" Desiwadi";
    }
    else if(query==null)
    {
        details.name="Sharad";
        details.surname=" Chougale ";
        details.address=" Gargoti";
    }
}

//Save the changes back to database.
context.SaveChanges();
}

Answer 9

Alternative for @LadislavMrnka answer. This if for Entity Framework 6.2.0.

If you have a specific DbSet and an item that needs to be either updated or created:

var name = getNameFromService();

var current = _dbContext.Names.Find(name.BusinessSystemId, name.NameNo);
if (current == null)
{
    _dbContext.Names.Add(name);
}
else
{
    _dbContext.Entry(current).CurrentValues.SetValues(name);
}
_dbContext.SaveChanges();

However this can also be used for a generic DbSet with a single primary key or a composite primary key.

var allNames = NameApiService.GetAllNames();
GenericAddOrUpdate(allNames, "BusinessSystemId", "NameNo");

public virtual void GenericAddOrUpdate<T>(IEnumerable<T> values, params string[] keyValues) where T : class
{
    foreach (var value in values)
    {
        try
        {
            var keyList = new List<object>();

            //Get key values from T entity based on keyValues property
            foreach (var keyValue in keyValues)
            {
                var propertyInfo = value.GetType().GetProperty(keyValue);
                var propertyValue = propertyInfo.GetValue(value);
                keyList.Add(propertyValue);
            }

            GenericAddOrUpdateDbSet(keyList, value);
            //Only use this when debugging to catch save exceptions
            //_dbContext.SaveChanges();
        }
        catch
        {
            throw;
        }
    }
    _dbContext.SaveChanges();
}

public virtual void GenericAddOrUpdateDbSet<T>(List<object> keyList, T value) where T : class
{
    //Get a DbSet of T type
    var someDbSet = Set(typeof(T));

    //Check if any value exists with the key values
    var current = someDbSet.Find(keyList.ToArray());
    if (current == null)
    {
        someDbSet.Add(value);
    }
    else
    {
        Entry(current).CurrentValues.SetValues(value);
    }
}

Answer 10

Corrected

public static void InsertOrUpdateRange<T, T2>(this T entity, List<T2> updateEntity) 
        where T : class
        where T2 : class
        {
            foreach(var e in updateEntity)
            {
                context.Set<T2>().InsertOrUpdate(e);
            }
        }


        public static void InsertOrUpdate<T, T2>(this T entity, T2 updateEntity) 
        where T : class
        where T2 : class
        {
            if (context.Entry(updateEntity).State == EntityState.Detached)
            {
                if (context.Set<T2>().Any(t => t == updateEntity))
                {
                   context.Set<T2>().Update(updateEntity); 
                }
                else
                {
                    context.Set<T2>().Add(updateEntity);
                }

            }
            context.SaveChanges();
        }