Entity Framework Code First Fluent Api: Adding Indexes to columns

You could create an attribute called indexed (as you suggested), which is then picked up in a custom initializer.

I created the following attribute:

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property, Inherited = false, AllowMultiple = true)]
public class IndexAttribute : Attribute
{
    public IndexAttribute(bool isUnique = false, bool isClustered = false, SortOrder sortOrder = SortOrder.Ascending)
    {
        IsUnique = isUnique;
        IsClustered = isClustered;
        SortOrder = sortOrder == SortOrder.Unspecified ? SortOrder.Ascending : sortOrder;

    }

    public bool IsUnique { get; private set; }
    public bool IsClustered { get; private set; }
    public SortOrder SortOrder { get; private set; }
    //public string Where { get; private set; }
}

I then created a custom initializer which got a list of the table names created for the entities in my context. I have two base classes which all my entities inherit, so I did the following to get the table names:

 var baseEF = typeof (BaseEFEntity);
        var baseLink = typeof (BaseLinkTable);
        var types =
            AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().ToList().SelectMany(s => s.GetTypes()).Where(
                baseEF.IsAssignableFrom).Union(AppDomain.CurrentDomain.GetAssemblies().ToList().SelectMany(
                    s => s.GetTypes()).Where(
                        baseLink.IsAssignableFrom));

        var sqlScript = context.ObjectContext.CreateDatabaseScript();

        foreach (var type in types)
        {
            var table = (TableAttribute) type.GetCustomAttributes(typeof (TableAttribute), true).FirstOrDefault();
            var tableName = (table != null ? table.Name : null) ?? Pluralizer.Pluralize(type.Name);

I then found all the properties on each entity that have this attribute and then execute a SQL command to generate the index on each property. Sweet!

//Check that a table exists
            if (sqlScript.ToLower().Contains(string.Format(CREATETABLELOOKUP, tableName.ToLower())))
            {

                //indexes

                var indexAttrib = typeof (IndexAttribute);
                properties = type.GetProperties().Where(prop => Attribute.IsDefined(prop, indexAttrib));
                foreach (var property in properties)
                {
                    var attributes = property.GetCustomAttributes(indexAttrib, true).ToList();

                    foreach (IndexAttribute index in attributes)
                    {
                        var indexName = string.Format(INDEXNAMEFORMAT, tableName, property.Name,
                                                      attributes.Count > 1
                                                          ? UNDERSCORE + (attributes.IndexOf(index) + 1)
                                                          : string.Empty);
                        try
                        {
                            context.ObjectContext.ExecuteStoreCommand(
                                string.Format(INDEX_STRING, indexName,
                                              tableName,
                                              property.Name,
                                              index.IsUnique ? UNIQUE : string.Empty,
                                              index.IsClustered ? CLUSTERED : NONCLUSTERED,
                                              index.SortOrder == SortOrder.Ascending ? ASC : DESC));
                        }
                        catch (Exception)
                        {
                        }
                    }
                }

I even went on to add class based indexes (which could have multiple columns) , unique constraints and default constraints all in the same way. Whats also really nice is that if you put these attributes on an inherited class the index or constraint gets applied to all the classes (tables) that inherit it.

BTW the pluralizer helper contains the following:

public static class Pluralizer
{
    private static object _pluralizer;
    private static MethodInfo _pluralizationMethod;

    public static string Pluralize(string word)
    {
        CreatePluralizer();
        return (string) _pluralizationMethod.Invoke(_pluralizer, new object[] {word});
    }

    public static void CreatePluralizer()
    {
        if (_pluralizer == null)
        {
            var aseembly = typeof (DbContext).Assembly;
            var type =
                aseembly.GetType(
                    "System.Data.Entity.ModelConfiguration.Design.PluralizationServices.EnglishPluralizationService");
            _pluralizer = Activator.CreateInstance(type, true);
            _pluralizationMethod = _pluralizer.GetType().GetMethod("Pluralize");
        }
    }
}

I've also looked into this recently and found no other way, so I settled with creating indexes when seeding the database:

public class MyDBInitializer : DropCreateDatabaseIfModelChanges<MyContext>
{
    private MyContext _Context;

    protected override void Seed(MyContext context)
    {
        base.Seed(context);
        _Context = context;

        // We create database indexes
        CreateIndex("FieldName", typeof(ClassName));

        context.SaveChanges();
    }

    private void CreateIndex(string field, Type table)
    {
        _Context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(String.Format("CREATE INDEX IX_{0} ON {1} ({0})", field, table.Name));
    }    
}   

To build on frozen's response, you can hand code it into a migration yourself.

First, go to the Package Manager Console and create a new migration with add-migration, then give it a name. A blank migration will appear. Stick this in:

    public override void Up()
    {
        CreateIndex("TableName", "ColumnName");
    }

    public override void Down()
    {
        DropIndex("TableName", "ColumnName");
    }

Note that if you're using a string field it needs to be capped to a length of 450 chars as well.

Well i found a solution online and adapted it to fit my needs here it is:

[AttributeUsage(AttributeTargets.Property, Inherited = false, AllowMultiple = true)]
public class IndexAttribute : Attribute
{
    public IndexAttribute(string name, bool unique = false)
    {
        this.Name = name;
        this.IsUnique = unique;
    }

    public string Name { get; private set; }

    public bool IsUnique { get; private set; }
}

public class IndexInitializer<T> : IDatabaseInitializer<T> where T : DbContext
{
    private const string CreateIndexQueryTemplate = "CREATE {unique} INDEX {indexName} ON {tableName} ({columnName});";

    public void InitializeDatabase(T context)
    {
        const BindingFlags PublicInstance = BindingFlags.Public | BindingFlags.Instance;
        Dictionary<IndexAttribute, List<string>> indexes = new Dictionary<IndexAttribute, List<string>>();
        string query = string.Empty;

        foreach (var dataSetProperty in typeof(T).GetProperties(PublicInstance).Where(p => p.PropertyType.Name == typeof(DbSet<>).Name))
        {
            var entityType = dataSetProperty.PropertyType.GetGenericArguments().Single();
            TableAttribute[] tableAttributes = (TableAttribute[])entityType.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(TableAttribute), false);

            indexes.Clear();
            string tableName = tableAttributes.Length != 0 ? tableAttributes[0].Name : dataSetProperty.Name;

            foreach (PropertyInfo property in entityType.GetProperties(PublicInstance))
            {
                IndexAttribute[] indexAttributes = (IndexAttribute[])property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(IndexAttribute), false);
                NotMappedAttribute[] notMappedAttributes = (NotMappedAttribute[])property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(NotMappedAttribute), false);
                if (indexAttributes.Length > 0 && notMappedAttributes.Length == 0)
                {
                    ColumnAttribute[] columnAttributes = (ColumnAttribute[])property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(ColumnAttribute), false);

                    foreach (IndexAttribute indexAttribute in indexAttributes)
                    {
                        if (!indexes.ContainsKey(indexAttribute))
                        {
                            indexes.Add(indexAttribute, new List<string>());
                        }

                        if (property.PropertyType.IsValueType || property.PropertyType == typeof(string))
                        {
                            string columnName = columnAttributes.Length != 0 ? columnAttributes[0].Name : property.Name;
                            indexes[indexAttribute].Add(columnName);
                        }
                        else
                        {
                            indexes[indexAttribute].Add(property.PropertyType.Name + "_" + GetKeyName(property.PropertyType));
                        }
                    }
                }
            }

            foreach (IndexAttribute indexAttribute in indexes.Keys)
            {
                query += CreateIndexQueryTemplate.Replace("{indexName}", indexAttribute.Name)
                            .Replace("{tableName}", tableName)
                            .Replace("{columnName}", string.Join(", ", indexes[indexAttribute].ToArray()))
                            .Replace("{unique}", indexAttribute.IsUnique ? "UNIQUE" : string.Empty);
            }
        }

        if (context.Database.CreateIfNotExists())
        {
            context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(query);
        }
    }

    private string GetKeyName(Type type)
    {
        PropertyInfo[] propertyInfos = type.GetProperties(BindingFlags.FlattenHierarchy | BindingFlags.Instance | BindingFlags.Public);
        foreach (PropertyInfo propertyInfo in propertyInfos)
        {
            if (propertyInfo.GetCustomAttribute(typeof(KeyAttribute), true) != null)
                return propertyInfo.Name;
        }
        throw new Exception("No property was found with the attribute Key");
    }
}

Then overload OnModelCreating in your dbcontext

    protected override void OnModelCreating(DbModelBuilder modelBuilder)
    {
        Database.SetInitializer(new IndexInitializer<MyContext>());
        base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
    }

Apply the index attribute to your Entity type, with this solution you can have multiple fields in the same index just use the same name and unique.

Extending Tsuushin's answer above to support multiple columns and unique constraints:

    private void CreateIndex(RBPContext context, string field, string table, bool unique = false)
    {
        context.Database.ExecuteSqlCommand(String.Format("CREATE {0}NONCLUSTERED INDEX IX_{1}_{2} ON {1} ({3})", 
            unique ? "UNIQUE " : "",
            table,
            field.Replace(",","_"),
            field));
    } 

To build further on all these great responses, we added the following code to enable the Index attribute to be picked up from an associated metadata type. For the full details please see my blog post, but in summary here are the details.

Metadata types are used like this:

    [MetadataType(typeof(UserAccountAnnotations))]
    public partial class UserAccount : IDomainEntity
        {
        [Key]
        public int Id { get; set; } // Unique ID
        sealed class UserAccountAnnotations
            {
            [Index("IX_UserName", unique: true)]
            public string UserName { get; set; }
            }
       }

In this example the metadata type is a nested class, but it doesn't have to be, it can be any type. Property matching is done by name only, so the metadata type just has to have a property of the same name, and any data annotations applied to that should then be applied to the associated entity class. This didn't work in the original solution because it doesn't check for the associated metadata type. We plumbed in the following helper method:

/// <summary>
///   Gets the index attributes on the specified property and the same property on any associated metadata type.
/// </summary>
/// <param name="property">The property.</param>
/// <returns>IEnumerable{IndexAttribute}.</returns>
IEnumerable<IndexAttribute> GetIndexAttributes(PropertyInfo property)
    {
    Type entityType = property.DeclaringType;
    var indexAttributes = (IndexAttribute[])property.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(IndexAttribute), false);
    var metadataAttribute =
        entityType.GetCustomAttribute(typeof(MetadataTypeAttribute)) as MetadataTypeAttribute;
    if (metadataAttribute == null)
        return indexAttributes; // No metadata type

    Type associatedMetadataType = metadataAttribute.MetadataClassType;
    PropertyInfo associatedProperty = associatedMetadataType.GetProperty(property.Name);
    if (associatedProperty == null)
        return indexAttributes; // No metadata on the property

    var associatedIndexAttributes =
        (IndexAttribute[])associatedProperty.GetCustomAttributes(typeof(IndexAttribute), false);
    return indexAttributes.Union(associatedIndexAttributes);
    }

expanding on Petoj

i modified the CreateIndexQueryTemplate to

private const string CreateIndexQueryTemplate = "IF NOT EXISTS (SELECT name FROM sysindexes WHERE name = '{indexName}') CREATE {unique} INDEX {indexName} ON {tableName} ({columnName});";

and removed the following from OnModelCreating

Database.SetInitializer(new IndexInitializer<MyContext>());

and added the following to Configuration Seeding method

new IndexInitializer<MyContext>().InitializeDatabase(context);

this way the index attributes are run every time you do a update-database.