Issues when comparing EF model against postgres

[erick-thompson]

I'm using SchemaCompare on a model that is backed by postgres. It's working well, but there are a few issues.

1. column length limit
   The limit in postgres is 63 bytes/59 characters (due to utf-8) and EF truncates the column names correctly so the object does exist, but the name doesn't match.

2. case sensitivity on computed columns
   The model and db differ (e.g., now() vs NOW()). I'm not sure why the case differs between EF and postgres, but something changes the case.

3. type conversion in postgres
   This problem is mainly in computed fields and defaults. For example, the expected/found for a couple of computed fields

expected: completed_at AT TIME ZONE 'America/Los_Angeles')::date
found = ((completed_at AT TIME ZONE 'America/Los_Angeles'::text))::date

or

expected = '[]'
found = '[]'::jsonb

I'm not sure the best solution for 3, but I think issues 1 and 2 could be fixed fairly easily by having two additional properties on the CompareEfSqlConfig. Something like:

bool CaseSensitivity
int MaxIdentifierLength

both of which would be used in the comparer to match on case and/or substring. Would you be open to a PR with this change?

[JonPSmith]

Hi @erick-thompson,

EfCore.SchemaCompare was built to work with SQL Server, but @bgrauer-atacom and @lweberprb provided a way so that it would for any EF Core database - see issue #26 to see the code that these two people provided to add this feature. The downside is there can be problems with some database types, as you have found.

My problem is that I have dementia - see this section. My dementia is getting worse and I don't really want change things.

Your offer of a PR is nice, but your changes are quite large and I'm afraid they will cause problems in other databases. I suggest you clone the EfCore.SchemaCompare code and create your own version - its a MIT license.

[erick-thompson]

Thanks for the response @JonPSmith. I totally understand the desire to not make major changes. I'll fork and create a version for my needs.

Thank you for all the awesome content/books you've produced. They have been very helpful!

[JonPSmith]

Hi @erick-thompson,

Thanks for your understanding. One thing you might think about in doing is to create a NuGet, say with the name of EfCore.SchemaCompare.Postgres, so that other people can use your updated postgres version. I would advertise your new postgres version on X if you like.

The only problem of doing that is that every November you need update the .NET version, and sometimes you have do more work if there are changes in the new NET version. Also you get people ask questions, errors, improvements etc., which can take your time.