Data Annotations - NotMapped Attribute in EF 6 & EF Core

The NotMapped attribute can be applied to properties of an entity class for which we do not want to create corresponding columns in the database. By default, EF creates a column for each property (must have get; & set;) in an entity class. The [NotMapped] attribute overrides this default convention. You can apply the [NotMapped] attribute on one or more properties for which you do NOT want to create a corresponding column in a database table.

NotMapped Attribute: [NotMapped()]

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.Schema;

public class Student
{
    public int StudentId { get; set; }
    public string StudentName { get; set; }
        
    [NotMapped]
    public int Age { get; set; }
}

In the above example, the [NotMapped] attribute is applied to the Age property of the Student class. So, EF will not create a column to store Age information in the Student db table, as shown below.

Note: EF also does not create a column for a property which does not have either getters or setters. For example, EF will not create columns for the following City and Age properties.

using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

public class Student
{
    private int _age = 0;

    public int StudentId { get; set; }
    public string StudentName { get; set; }
    public string City { get{ return StudentName;}  }
    public int Age { set{ _age = value;}  }
}