The Entity States represents the state of an entity. The Entity state can be Added, Deleted, Modified, Unchanged or Detached. DbContext tracks & manages the entity state of every entity using the ChangeTracker. For example, when we add a new entity to Context using the Add method, the DbContext sets the state of the entity as Added. When you call the SaveChanges method, the context sends an Insert Query to the database. Similarly, it uses it to create Insert,Update or Delete SQL queries, when we invoke the SaveChanges
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Table of Contents
Entity States
An entity is always in any one of the following states.
- Added
- Deleted
- Modified
- Unchanged
- Detached
Added
Added entity state indicates that the entity exists in the context, but does not exist in the database. The DbContext generates the INSERT SQL query and insert the data into the database when the user invokes the SaveChanges method. Once the SaveChanges is successful, the state of the entity changes to Unchanged
Unchanged
The property values of the entity have not been modified since context retrieved it the database. SaveChanges ignores this entity.
Modified
The entity state becomes Modified, when the user makes changes to the entity. It also indicates that the entity exists in the database. The DbContext generates the update SQL Query to update the entity in the database. Once the SaveChanges is successful, the state of the entity changes to Unchanged
In Connected Scenario, the Entity framework also keeps track of the changes made to the properties of the entity. The context updates only those columns whose values are modified.
Deleted
The Deleted entity state indicates that the entity is marked for deletion, but not yet deleted from the database. It also indicates that the entity exists in the database. The DbContext generates the delete SQL Query to remove the entity from the database. The DbContext removes the entity once the delete operation succeeds after the SaveChanges
Detached
The Detached entity state indicates that the DbContext is not tracking the entity.
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