EF Core 7.0 (EF7) RC1

EF Core 7.0 (EF7) RC1 is available from NuGet.

RC1 is does not include more than 70 fixes that will be in RC2. Therefore, we recommend using the daily builds when testing your applications with EF7.

RC1 contains the following new features:

• Map JSON values stored in database to EF properties
• ExecuteUpdate/Delete (AKA bulk update, without loading data into memory)
• Code templates for scaffolding entity types and DbContext from an existing database
• Support raw SQL Queries for basic types like Guid, DateTime and int
• Allow applications to create model building conventions (aka public conventions)
• Cosmos: Support AAD RBAC via the ClientSecretCredential
• Map inserts, updates, and deletes (CUD operations) to stored procedures
• Add a static flag in EF that will be set when code is being executed for design-time discover
• Support sequence key generation on SQL Server, which is useful for Table-per-concrete-type (TPC) mapping
• Allow null connection string to be passed to UseProvider methods
• Downgrade the ContextInitialized event from Information to Debug
• Get an EntityEntry<TEntity> for Shared Entity Types
• Make EntityEntryGraphIterator publicly usable

RC1 also includes the following new features from previews 1 through 7:

• Support unidirectional many-to-many relationships
• Translate string.Join and string.Concat
• RevEng: Enable generating IEntityTypeConfiguration classes (avoids large OnModelCreating)
• Interception to modify the LINQ expression tree
• Interception for DbUpdateConcurrencyException
• Add interception event to be fired when EF has finished consuming a result set
• Add events for DetectChanges/state change
• ChangeTracker: New event for "entity about to get tracked"
• Translate EnvelopeCombiner.CombineAsGeometry aggregate function
• SQL Server: Translate statistics aggregate functions
• Filtered Includes for hidden navigation properties
• Make it easier to pass a CancellationToken to FindAsync
• Interception for object materialization (a.k.a. "ObjectMaterialized")
• Provide a hook for identity resolution
• Create lazy-loading and change-tracking proxy types lazily
• Compiled model: Allow use of lazy loading and change tracking proxy types
• Full support for custom provider aggregate functions
• Spatial: Translate aggregate functions
• Allow specifying different column names per table in TPT, TPC or entity splitting
• Support for custom proxy generation
• TPC inheritance mapping pattern
• DeleteBehaviorAttribute
• Translate GetType() for entity types with inheritance
• Delay DbCommandInterceptor.CommandCreated until DbCommand properties are initialized
• Remove unnecessary extra batches in SaveChanges
• Don't check for a connection string until after ConnectionOpening has been called
• Add ConnectionCreating/ConnectionCreated to DbConnectionInterceptor
• Migration name filter
• Add support for AT TIME ZONE
• GroupBy aggregate lifting
• Pascal-case the DbContext name when scaffolding
• Support value generation with converters
• Improve batching performance when using TPH mappings
• Attribute (Data Annotations) mapping for composite primary keys
• SQL Server UTF8 collations
• Stop wrapping single changes in transactions where possible
• Use RETURNING/OUTPUT clause for UPDATE/DELETE
• SQLite SaveChanges: Use RETURNING clause
• SQL Server: Optimize SQL Server OUTPUT clause usage when retrieving database-generated values
• Stop automatically deleting orphans for optional relationships with cascade delete configured
• Empty default interface implementations for all interceptor interface methods
• Temporal tables support for owned entities and other table splitting scenarios
• Support for index ordering (ASC/DESC)
• Support "non-rooted" query expressions in compiled queries
• Property/Reference/etc overloads that take IProperty/INavigation
• Distinguish cancellation from failure to allow different logging strategies
• Lift table from subquery when joining if no additional operations
• DiagnosticSuppressor for CS8618 for DbSet properties
• Stop generating a default DbContext constructor when using dotnet ef dbcontext scaffold --no-onconfiguring
• Robust and extensible SQL precedence/parentheses mechanism
• Translation for string.IndexOf(string, int)
• Support SqlNullabilityProcessor and COALESCE with more than two arguments
• Support Contains when using a IReadOnlySet
• Overload of EnableRetryOnFailure that allows specifying errorCodesToAdd without count / delay

See GitHub for all issues resolved in preview 1, preview 2, preview 3, preview 4, preview 5, preview 6, preview 7, and RC1.