Easily perform temporal queries with EF Core

Available on NuGet:

❗❗❗ IMPORTANT - EF Core 6 users ❗❗❗
If your project is targeting EF Core 6+ you may not need this extension, please read the Microsoft blog post announcement
If you want help how to use it with EF Core 6, you can find a sample and associated tutorial

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Table of Contents

1. Overview

2. Dependencies

3. Installation

4. Usage

1. Overview

There is no way querying temporal tables with Entity Framework Core except writing boring SQL code and executing raw queries. This package allows you to easily query your historic data and mix it with Entity Framework Core in an intuitive way.

All temporal criterias are supported and it works with all databases supported by EF Core and all operating systems supported by .NET Core (Windows/MacOS/Linux).

2. Dependencies

• NETStandard 2.0
• Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore >= 5.0.2
• Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore.Relational >= 5.0.2

(EF Core 2.x or 3.x support)

3. Installation

There are two ways to install the package:

• via Visual Studio : Right Click on project > Manage NuGet packages > Search for "EfCoreTemporalTable" > Install
• via command line: dotnet add package EfCoreTemporalTable

4. Usage

You can use it with your existing EF Core DbContext/DbSet. On top of your file, add using EfCoreTemporalTable;

On your DbSet properties you now get the following extension methods:

• AsTemporalAll()
• AsTemporalAsOf(date)
• AsTemporalFrom(startDate, endDate)
• AsTemporalBetween(startDate, endDate)
• AsTemporalContained(startDate, endDate)

Those methods return an IQueryable<T>, meaning the execution is deferred and you can mix it with your usual EF Core and cutom methods.

For example, if you want to get all employees named "Lautrou" at the time of yesterday, and their company at that time but with up-to-date information:

var result = myDbContext.Employees
    .AsTemporalOf(DateTime.UtcNow.AddDays(-1))
    .Include(i=> i.Company)
    .FirstOrDefault(i => i.Name == "Lautrou");

The generated SQL query will be:

exec sp_executesql N'SELECT TOP(1) [e].[Id], [e].[CompanyId], [e].[Lastname], [e].[Firstname], [c].[Id], [c].[Name]
    FROM (
        SELECT * FROM [dbo].[Employee] FOR SYSTEM_TIME AS OF @p0
    ) AS [e]
    INNER JOIN [Company] AS [c] ON [e].[CompanyId] = [c].[Id]
    WHERE [e].[Lastname] = N''Lautrou''',N'@p0 datetime2(7)',@p0='2019-11-27 17:26:10.1256588'

As you can see the SQL query is clean and the temporal parameter is a DbParameter (and not inlined).

You can of course join temporal tables, and write your C# in the way you want:

var employees = from employee in db.Employees.AsTemporalOf(date)
                join company in db.Entreprise.AsTemporalOf(date) on employee.CompanyId equals company.Id
                select new
                {
                    Employee = employee,
                    Company = company
                };