This is really a short post as to highlight an issue that I run into (and most will) when using MySql with Entity Framework employing the mysql connector net.
Scenario
I work mostly on my laptop which has mysql connector 6.0.4 installed. Using the connector in conjunction with EF v1 generated my domain object with timestamp fields mapping from a binary in my conceptual schema to timestamp in my physical schema. Everything worked just fine till I deployed to my production machine and realized I didn’t have mysql connector installed on my production server. So…I did what most will do, download the connect but installed the latest version (v6.1). After deploying my app to the server, the unexpected happened. My app was broken. The error message indicated that Edm.binary was not compatible to mysql.timestamp. OK, I was stumped. The app works just fine my my laptop why not on my server.
Solution
After a couple of hours using process of elimination, I realized that using version 6.1 of the connector sets your mapping for timestamp from Edm.DateTimeOffset(conceptual schema) to timestamp (physical schema)which worked fine but version 6.0.4 of the connector sets your mapping for timestamp from Edm.binary(conceptual schema) to timestamp (physical schema) which also works as well. DateTimeOffset is a type specific to Sql server so the best option for me was to stay with 6.0.1 (using binary) which is generic and can be used with other db’s if ever need.
Filed under: ASP.NET MVC
