Adding Complex Type in Entity Framework

This post will show how to create and add Complex Type to entity class in Entity Framework 4.1.

Let's say that we have a Customer table that looks like the following:

We can see that the table stores billing and shipping addresses information. The addresses information have similar structure and data types. Other tables in the same database might have other addresses information similar to these as well. Therefore, instead of handling each of the address part individually for each address information, we can use a common type for these addresses. In Entity Framework, we call this Complex Type.

So now we are going to add 'AddressInfo' Complex Type. Here are the steps to do that:
1. Right click an empty space on designer
2. Select Add > Complex Type
3. A new complex type is added, rename it to 'AddressInfo'

4. To add its properties, right click the complex type then select Add > Scalar Poperty > String
5. A new property is added, rename it to 'Address'

6. then right click 'Address', select Properties
7. change 'Max Length' value to 150

8. Repeat steps 4-7 above to add 'Suburb', 'Country' and 'PostCode'

After adding the Complex Type, we need to add that to the 'Customer' entity. Say that we want to create 'Customer' entity manually then add the Complex Type to it:
1. Right click an empty space on designer
2. Select Add > Entity
3. Type 'Customer' as Entity name
4. On the 'Key Property' section, type 'CustomerID' as the Property name. This is the same name as the primary key column name in the database table
5. Click 'OK' then a new entity is added
6. To add 'FirstName' property, right click the entity then select Add > Scalar Property
7. A new property is added, rename it to 'FirstName'
8. Right click 'FirstName' then select Properties
9. Change the 'Max Length' value to 50
10. Repeat the steps 6-9 to add 'LastName' property
11. To add 'BillingAddress', select Add > Complex Property
12. A new property is added, rename to 'BillingAddress'
13. Right click 'BillingAddess' then select Properties
14. Make sure the 'Type' is 'AddressInfo'

15. Repeat steps 11-14 to add 'ShippingAddress'

Finally we need to map the entity and its Complex Type and Scalar properties to the actual columns in the database.
1. Right click 'Customer' entity then select Table Mapping
2. Click '<Add a Table or View>' then select 'Customer' from dropdown
3. Then you will see under 'Column Mappings' all the columns from 'Customer' table in the database displayed on the left side, while the entity properties are displayed on the right side. All matched properties are automatically mapped, however our Complex Types are not recognized.

4. Click on the 'Value / Property' column of 'BillingAddress' then select 'BillingAddress.Address'
5. Repeat the process for other columns that will be mapped to Complex Type properties. When we have done all the mappings we will have this: