Provider-facing changes in EF Core 11 (EF11)

This page documents noteworthy changes in EF Core 11 which may affect EF providers; none of these should affect end-users of EF - this page is only meant for EF provider maintainers. The list is maintained on a best-effort basis, some changes may be missing.

Changes

• Collation names are now quoted in SQL, like column and table names (see #37462). If your database doesn't support collation name quoting, override QuerySqlGenerator.VisitSql() and MigrationsSqlGenerator.ColumnDefinition() to revert to the previous behavior, but it's recommended to implement some sort of restricted character validation.
• Type mapping has been made generic to support NativeAOT (PR #38440). Provider maintainers should: (1) update custom mappings to derive from the new generic mapping base types (CoreTypeMapping<T> and RelationalTypeMapping<T> where applicable) so default comparers can be created without reflection, and (2) update calls/overrides of CoreTypeMapping.Clone(...) and RelationalTypeMapping.Clone(...) to remove the old clrType argument.
• The JsonPath property on IColumnModification and ColumnModificationParameters has changed from string? to the new structured JsonPath type (PR #38038). The JsonPath class provides Segments, Ordinals, an IsRoot property, and an AppendTo(StringBuilder) method for rendering the JSONPATH string. Providers that override UpdateSqlGenerator.AppendUpdateColumnValue() or otherwise handle JSON partial updates should update their code to use this new type. Where previously you checked for null or "$", use JsonPath is not { IsRoot: false } instead, and call JsonPath.AppendTo(stringBuilder) to write the JSONPATH string representation.
• EF Core now strips no-op SQL CASTs - i.e. SqlUnaryExpression(Convert) nodes whose store type matches that of their operand (see #36247, PR #38156). This can flush out imprecise translations which assigned an imprecise store type to a node and then wrapped it with a Convert; because the store types now match, the Convert is stripped, and the imprecise store type may propagate. Review your translations to ensure that the operand of a Convert node has the correct, precise store type.
• Keys and indexes can now traverse complex-type properties (PR #38192). The metadata API for indexes and keys has been broadened (e.g., FindIndex/AddIndex signatures now accept IReadOnlyProperty, new ModelValidator checks, and ICSharpHelper additions). Providers that consume index/key metadata, generate C# for indexes (scaffolding/codegen), or implement custom validation should review and update their code to handle complex-type-spanning keys and indexes.

Test changes

• The inheritance specification tests have been reorganized into a folder of their own (PR).
• Query test classes now support non-shared-model tests via a new QueryFixtureBase class that all query fixtures extend (PR #37681). The previous pattern of extending SharedStoreFixtureBase and IQueryFixtureBase separately has been replaced. NonSharedPrimitiveCollectionsQueryTestBase has been merged into PrimitiveCollectionsQueryTestBase, and per-type array tests have been moved to TypeTestBase.Primitive_collection_in_query.
• EF Core's Specification.Tests assemblies have been upgraded from xUnit v2 to xUnit v3 (PR #38277). Provider test projects that reference these assemblies and inherit from the base test classes must be migrated to xUnit v3: update to the new xunit.v3 packages, Microsoft.DotNet.XUnitV3Extensions, Microsoft.Testing.Platform runner, and Microsoft.NET.Test.Sdk; account for [Collection]/ITestOutputHelper API differences; and change [ConditionalFact] to [Fact] and [ConditionalTheory] to [Theory]. When running tests directly with dotnet exec, add --filter-not-trait category=failing --ignore-exit-code 8.