Map tables relationship from legacy database w/ entity framework with only primary keys

Question

data (table name)

dataid PK,

value1,

value2,

value3

data_address (table name)

dataaddressid PK,

Answer 1

If you are certain that the database's integrity is sound you could just map the tables and create the associations manually in the EF model.

In a database-first mode I fiddled a bit with a simple data model: Parent + Child without FK. The tables were of course imported without association between them. Then I did "Add Association..." on the Parent, like so:

Note: no foreign key property yet. I added it manually in the properties of the association:

And I could run a linq query on Parent.Children.

I think this is the easiest way for you. The edmx design surface gives you some guidance to see which associations you created. You can always add a code generation item to generate a DbContext which is easiser to work with than the default ObjectContext.