CODEWITHSUNDEEP
asp.net-mvcasp.net-mvc-3entity-frameworkpocodata-access-layer
Cody
Cody

Reputation: 8964

Passing POCOs or EF objects to the Web project?

Say I have a Visual studio solution with two projects: one web project, and one data project.

Does it really matter whether I pass the EF object from the data project to the web project, or do I need to explicitly define POCOs in the data project to pass to the web project?

It seems to me that needing to create POCOs instead of simply using EF objects adds yet another thing that needs to be done...and I don't particularly see the purpose.

Upvotes: 0

Views: 112

Answers (2)

Ryan Amies
Ryan Amies

Reputation: 4932

If you're using Entity Framework 4, the EF objects are POCO objects, and so should be used in any situation where your Model matches your EF object (CRUD operations are the typical ones). However there will more than likely be situations whereby the standard POCO object doesn't encapsulate all of the fields that are needed for a View Model (typical ones I have this with are account pages where you have two password fields) and so you will need to create a Model for the page, which then passes the data into your EF POCO objects.

So if you're using DbContext (which creates POCO objects for you) there is no reason not to use those objects.

Upvotes: 1

amesh
amesh

Reputation: 1329

It's not a good practice to pass the EF objects directly to the web project. As the state changes occurring in the EF objects can directly reflect on the database. Because of this you should explicitly define POC objects for web project.(we can call this as Data Model or simply Model. The POC object used for retrieving data from the View can be called as View Model. In appropriate situations you can use the same POCO class as a Data Model as well a View Model)

Upvotes: 0

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