How do I delete multiple rows in Entity Framework (without foreach)
entity-framework
Question
I'm deleting several items from a table using Entity Framework. There isn't a foreign key / parent object so I can't handle this with OnDeleteCascade.
Right now I'm doing this:
var widgets = context.Widgets
.Where(w => w.WidgetId == widgetId);
foreach (Widget widget in widgets)
{
context.Widgets.DeleteObject(widget);
}
context.SaveChanges();
It works but the foreach bugs me. I'm using EF4 but I don't want to execute SQL. I just want to make sure I'm not missing anything - this is as good as it gets, right? I can abstract it with an extension method or helper, but somewhere we're still going to be doing a foreach, right?
Accepted Answer
If you don't want to execute SQL directly calling DeleteObject in a loop is the best you can do today.
However you can execute SQL and still make it completely general purpose via an extension method, using the approach I describe here.
Although that answer was for 3.5. For 4.0 I would probably use the new ExecuteStoreCommand API under the hood, instead of dropping down to the StoreConnection.
Popular Answer
EntityFramework 6 has made this a bit easier with .RemoveRange().
Example:
db.People.RemoveRange(db.People.Where(x => x.State == "CA"));
db.SaveChanges();
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