Quick Start

Set Up a Free Tier Cluster in Atlas

To set up your Atlas free cluster required for this Quick Start, complete the guide MongoDB Atlas Setup guide.

After completing the steps in the Atlas guide, you have a new MongoDB cluster deployed in Atlas, a new database user, and sample datasets loaded into your cluster. You also have a connection string similar to the following in your copy buffer:

"mongodb+srv://<username>:<password>@cluster0.abc.mongodb.net/?retryWrites=true&w=majority"

Update the Placeholders

Paste the connection string in your copy buffer into a file in your preferred text editor. Replace the <username> and <password> placeholders with your database user's username and password.

Save this file to a safe location for use in the next step.

Add Your Connection String to an Environment Variable

Run the following code in your shell to save the MongoDB connection string in your copy buffer from the previous step to an environment variable. Storing your connection string in an environment variable keeps your credentials separate from your source code. This separation makes it less likely to expose your credentials when sharing your code.

export MONGODB_URI='<your connection string>'

Create the Project

Create a new directory and use the dotnet new command to initialize your project as follows:

mkdir entity-quickstart
cd entity-quickstart
dotnet new console

Add the MongoDB Entity Framework Core Provider as a Dependency

Use the dotnet add command to add the Entity Framework Core Provider to your project as a dependency.

dotnet add package MongoDB.EntityFrameworkCore

Add the Sample Code

Open the file named Program.cs in the base directory of your project. Copy the following sample code into Program.cs:

using Microsoft.EntityFrameworkCore;
using MongoDB.Bson;
using MongoDB.Driver;
using MongoDB.EntityFrameworkCore.Extensions;
var connectionString = Environment.GetEnvironmentVariable("MONGODB_URI");
if (connectionString == null)
{
    Console.WriteLine("You must set your 'MONGODB_URI' environment variable. To learn how to set it, see https://www.mongodb.com/docs/drivers/csharp/current/quick-start/#set-your-connection-string");
    Environment.Exit(0);
}
var client = new MongoClient(connectionString);
var db = MflixDbContext.Create(client.GetDatabase("sample_mflix"));
var movie = db.Movies.First(m => m.title == "Back to the Future");
Console.WriteLine(movie.plot);
internal class MflixDbContext : DbContext
{
    public DbSet<Movie> Movies { get; init; }
    public static MflixDbContext Create(IMongoDatabase database) =>
        new(new DbContextOptionsBuilder<MflixDbContext>()
            .UseMongoDB(database.Client, database.DatabaseNamespace.DatabaseName)
            .Options);
    public MflixDbContext(DbContextOptions options)
        : base(options)
    {
    }
    protected override void OnModelCreating(ModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
        modelBuilder.Entity<Movie>().ToCollection("movies");
    }
}
internal class Movie
{
    public ObjectId _id { get; set; }
    public string title { get; set; }
    public string rated { get; set; }
    public string plot { get; set; }
}

Query the Sample Data

Run the following command in your shell. It should print the plot of the movie "Back to the Future" from the sample dataset:

dotnet run entity-quickstart.csproj