Store single instance in DbContext with ASP.NET MVC 5 CF EF (no list) - asp.net

Question

I have a class called AppSettings where I store some settings of my application. So far, I only used Lists in my DbContext like
public class MyDbContext: DbContext {
public DbSet<User> Users { get; get; }
}
But for the settings, I need no list. I only want to store a single instance of my AppSettings class. I tried to set it as a normal member
public class AppSettingsContext: DbContext {
public AppSettings AppSetting { get; get; }
}
But this is not working: EF will throw an exception that the entity type AppSettings is not a part of the model for the current context. The Code:
using(var db = new AppSettingsContext()) {
var setting = new AppSettings() {
AttributeA = "Test",
//...
};
db.Entry(setting).State = EntityState.Added;
db.SaveChanges();
}
Is it possible to do this with EF? Or am I forced to implement this logic on my own by using a not mapped attribute where I make sure that only one single instance is stored and returned by the database?

Answer 1

If you want to store your settings in the DB, you can't store singular, that's not how TSQL works.
If you only want singular settings for a user, I would recomend web.config. If you REALLY want to store it in the DB though and want it to have a more concrete feeling you could just extend your database context like so:
public class MyDbContext: DbContext {
public DbSet<User> Users { get; get; }
public DbSet<AppSettings> AppSettings { get; set;}
}
public static class MyDbExtensions
{
public static async Task<AppSettings> DbSettings(this MyDbContext context, Guid settingsGuid)
{
return await context.AppSettings.FirstAsync(as => as.Id == settingsGuid)
}
// OR
public static async Task<AppSettings> UserSettings(this MyDbContext context)
{
return await context.AppSettings.FirstAsync(as => as.Id == UserSettingsDbGuid)
}
public static Guid UserSettingsDbGuid = "Guid of user settings goes here"
}
// example usage:
var context = GETDBCONTEXTMETHOD();
var userSettings == context.DbSettings(MyDbExtensions.UserSettingsDbGuid);
// OR
userSettings == context.UserSettings();