Get discriminator value from Entity in Entity Framework

Question

I have a TPH (Table per Hierarchy) set up in Entity Framework, where I use a column called Discriminator to seperate the different EntityTypes.

I.e. when the Discriminator is 0 the type is Dog, if it's 1 it's Cat etc

Now I want to move some code for (mass)-updating from EF to a custom ExecuteSqlCommand.

Question: Is it possible to extract the Discriminator value from the Type through the MetadataWorkspace or by some other way?

I'm look for something like GetDiscriminatorValue<Cat>("ColumnName")

If not possible: is there another way so I don't have to hardcode those values somewhere in my code?

Thanks,

Answer 1

I haven't tried yet but it seems that you can get the value (and other non-public properties) using reflection and MetadataWorkSpace. Take a look at this example: http://blog.cincura.net/231942-tph-mapping-discriminator-condition-from-metadataworkspace/