Entity Framework Pitfalls: Mapping Discriminator Columns

When you use a discriminator column, that is, a column that holds a value that tells Entity Framework what type the row refers to, or what restriction it shall use when querying the entity, you cannot map this column as a property in your entity.

For example, imagine you want to use “soft deletes”, that is, use a database column to represent the “deleted” state of a record instead of actually physically deleting it from the table; you might have an IS_DELETED column of some integer type, that would hold either a 1 or a 0, depending on whether the record is deleted (1) or not (0). In that case, you would build a mapping like this in OnModelCreating:

   1: modelBuilder.Entity<MySoftDeletableEntity>().Map<MySoftDeletableEntity>(m => m.Requires("is_deleted").HasValue(0));

However, you won’t be able to have a corresponding IsDeleted property in the MySoftDeletableEntity, because Entity Framework will throw an exception complaining about it. It is somewhat sad, because it might be useful to refer to it, but that’s the way it is.