RIA/EF4 Entity property mapped to NOT NULL nvarchar - empty string

Question

Background:

• Entity Framework 4
• Silverlight 4
• RIA services
• MSSQL Server 2008

I have an entity that has a String property named Description.

In database it maps to the NOT NULL NVARCHAR(200).

Problem:

When I try to insert a new row of that entity, this is what I do:

MyExampleEntity entity = new MyExampleEntity()
{
    Name = "example",
    Description = ""        // NOTE THIS LINE!
};

DatabaseContext db = new DatabaseContext();
db.MyExampleEntities.Add(entity);
db.SubmitChanges();

This, however, causes an exception saying "The Description field is required."

Question:

Should not the "empty string" be simply that - a string with zero characters?

I believe only Description = null should be treated as providing no value.

• Why is my string, which has a value (although its length is 0), considered to be as if I have omitted the value?
• On what level does this conversion happen? On RIA, on EF or in MSSQL?
• Is there a way to make a description have zero-length value when I set the Description to "" and cause an exception when Description = null (having no value)?

Carryingon

Answer 1

This appears to be a symptom of Entity Framework.

Related Article

Some data annotations can be used to overcome this:

[MetadataType(typeof(Report_META))]
   public partial class Report
   {
   }

   public partial class Report_META
   {
       [Required(AllowEmptyStrings = true)]
       [DisplayFormat(ConvertEmptyStringToNull = false)]
       public object Note { get; set; } 
    }

Sorn

Note that the [Required] attribute might collide with FluentValidation rules if you're using those, since these can add the attribute as well, and you can only have one instance of the attribute at a time (https://mcmap.net/q/410004/-fluent-validations-error-validation-type-names-in-unobtrusive-client-validation-rules-must-be-unique). I was able to get around this and allow empty strings by dropping the [Required] attribute from the MetadataType class and adding a conditional rule to the validation: RuleFor(x => x.Field).Etc(...).When(x => !string.IsNullOrWhitespace(x.Field); – Wes