Plug-in APIs

EF Core extensions often require adding logic to core EF and provider components. This usually requires creating a derived component and replacing the original one in the internal service provider. This gets complicated when multiple extensions want to change the same component. In these cases, we provide plug-in APIs to allow multiple extensions to provide additional logic.

List of services

The following is a list of plug-in APIs.

Service	Description
ITypeMappingSourcePlugin	Adds mappings between .NET types and primitive store types.
IRelationalTypeMappingSourcePlugin	Adds mappings between .NET types and primitive relational database types.
IConventionSetPlugin	Adds model building conventions.
IMemberTranslatorPlugin	Adds SQL translations for .NET properties.
IMethodCallTranslatorPlugin	Adds SQL translations for .NET methods.
IAggregateMethodCallTranslatorPlugin	Adds SQL translations for .NET enumerable methods.
IEvaluatableExpressionFilterPlugin	Forces server-eval of certain expressions.
IProviderCodeGeneratorPlugin	Scaffolds provider and DbContext options.

Examples

Here are some extensions making use of these APIs:

Extension	Description
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Sqlite.NetTopologySuite	Adds type mappings and SQL translations for SpatiaLite's types.
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer.HierarchyId	Adds type mappings and SQL translations for SQL Server's hierarchyid type.
Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.SqlServer.NetTopologySuite	Adds type mappings and SQL translations for SQL Server's geography and geometry types.
EFCore.CheckConstraints	Adds model building conventions for relational database check constraints.
EFCore.NamingConventions	Adds model building conventions for alternative relational database table, column, and constraint names.