This article was written in 2020. Versions, tools and recommendations may have changed since then. Newer posts are collected under .NET.
Often you want to duplicate entities or their values in order to save an entity with a new ID. But what is the best way to do this?
There are many examples in the vastness of the Internet based on Object.Clone() or Reflection.
But this is not necessary. Entity Framework has inherent methods to copy values.
DbContext Clone
To simply copy values from an existing entity to a new entity, you have two stable ways.
Copy values to a local var first:
1var values = db.Entry(oldEntity).CurrentValues.Clone();
2var newEntity = ...
3db.Entry(newEntity ).CurrentValues.SetValues(values);
4newEntity.Id = 0;Directly copy values from old entity to new entity.
1db.Entry(newEntity).CurrentValues.SetValues(oldEntity);
2newEntity.Id = 0;These methods are stable and not based on any Reflection tinkering.
Related articles
- 11 min read
Containerizing .NET in 2026 Without a Dockerfile
Most .NET Dockerfiles repeat the same five steps: restore, publish, select the matching Microsoft runtime image, copy the output and start …
- 12 min read
Problem Details in ASP.NET Core and .NET 11
builder.Services.AddProblemDetails() registers infrastructure. It does not create an error contract. An ASP.NET Core request can fail during …
- 11 min read
Resilience in .NET with Microsoft.Extensions.Resilience
Retries are the most visible resilience strategy and the easiest one to misuse. Repeating a failing call can recover from a short network …
BEN ABT
Ben is Chief Engineering Officer and Principal Software Engineer at Medialesson.de, with a strong focus on .NET and Microsoft Azure. In his professional role, he designs and builds highly scalable platforms for hybrid and cloud-based scenarios. He also advises companies and C-levels on migrating to the sovereign cloud.
He runs myCSharp.de, the largest and most active German-speaking C# community forum, actively contributes to both his own and external open-source projects and regularly shares his knowledge through his blog, at community events, conferences and as a writer for technical magazines.
Let's Work Together
Looking for an experienced Platform Architect or Engineer for your next project? Whether it's cloud migration, platform modernization or building new solutions from scratch - I'm here to help you succeed.