How deeply does Building Web APIs with ASP.NET Core cover identity column?

Explains automatic assignment, the explicit-value failure, and two fixes, then implements the preserving-ID option.

Identity column

As explained in Building Web APIs with ASP.NET Core

An identity column is a SQL Server table column whose values are automatically generated, typically by incrementing a stored counter.

An identity column is a SQL Server column whose values the database generates and increments automatically. In the BoardGames table, EF Core assigns this behavior to the Id primary-key column. section 5.3.6

When IDENTITY_INSERT is OFF, inserting an explicit Id value fails. Seeding CSV records therefore requires either omitting Id and accepting new values or temporarily allowing explicit identity values. section 5.3.6

Preserving imported IDs during seeding

Wrap the save operation in a transaction, set IDENTITY_INSERT BoardGames ON, call SaveChangesAsync, turn the setting OFF, and commit. This preserves the CSV identifiers while allowing SQL Server to accept them. section 5.3.6

How Building Web APIs with ASP.NET Core covers it

Cover of Building Web APIs with ASP.NET Core

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Related concepts

database tablepart of · A database table is a relational database structure that organizes records into rows and defined columns.
artificial primary keyused by · An artificial primary key is a generated key introduced to identify rows independently of the table's natural business attributes.
identityused by · Identity is a Hibernate identifier-generation strategy in which the database assigns the primary-key value during row insertion through an identity or auto-increment column.
primary keyconfigures · A primary key is a designated column or attribute, or combination of them, that uniquely identifies each row or item in a table or data store.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Building Web APIs with ASP.NET Core. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.