entity framework - ef 5 codefirst enum collection not generated in database

Question

I am using EF5 and .NET 4.5. I have one particular class that is being generated incorrectly in the database. Although it is somewhat more complicated in my website, I'll simplify;

namespace Store.Enities
{
    public enum Role
    { Manager, Clerk }

    public class User
    {
        public int Id {get; set;}
        public ICollection<Role> Roles {get; set;}
    }

    public class StoreContext : DbContext
    {
        public DbSet<User> Users {get; set;}

        public StoreContext()
        {
            Database.SetIntializer(new DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges<StoreContext>());
        }
    }
}

As you can see a user can have more than one role. For some reason I can't manage to store the roles in the database.

Answer 1

An enum is still a primitive type, in particular an integer. Just as your User class can't have an ICollection<int> that maps to something in the database, it can't have a collection of the enum.

You should define a Role class that could look like this:

public class Role
{
    public int Id {get; set;}
    public Roles Role {get; set;}
}

And change the name of the enum into Roles (or anything but Role).