F# type providers with EF Code First / Continuous Integration Issues

Question

We have a large C# EF Code First based code base. Recently one F# project was added. The project uses FSharp.Data.SqlClient (http://fsprojects.github.io/FSharp.Data.SqlClient/) type provider to connect to DB.

That created a huge problem: F# type provider needs DB (and all referenced structures) to exist before the whole project can be complied from scratch, but EF needs to compile the whole project before it can create / update the DB. Subsequently, the DB can no longer be created from scratch or even modified.

While not using type providers is, obviously, possible, it is not an appealing solution because it nullifies the whole purpose of type providers and requires writing code that's already done by them.

Does anyone has any ideas how to deal with that? Thanks a lot!

Answer 1

Expanding on my comment, assuming you have currently only 2 VS projects:

1. Your C# project that contains everything including the EF code
2. Your F# project that contains the code that uses the type provider

What you could do is turn in into a 3 project solution:

1. A new and small C# project that only does EF stuff (migrations, schema definition, classes declaration)
2. Your F# project that contains the code that uses the type provider
3. Your existing C# project that would not contain the ef classes and ef related things but that references both #1 and #2.

That way, you EF C# project can compile first then run the migrations. Then your F# project would compile fine. Finally your 3rd project (that contains the rest of the logic that depends on both the EF and F# projects) can compile successfully.