Change Tracking

Manages entity states and detects changes for SaveChanges().

Core Components

• StateManager — central engine, identity maps, tracks all entities
• InternalEntityEntry — per-entity state, property flags, snapshots
• SnapshotFactoryFactory subclasses build snapshot factories for change detection
• PropertyAccessorsFactory, ClrPropertyGetterFactory and ClrPropertySetterFactory compile property accessors for efficient snapshotting and change detection
  • Ordinals in indices parameter specify element at each complex collection depth

Testing

Unit tests: test/EFCore.Tests/ChangeTracking/. Functional tests: test/EFCore.Specification.Tests/GraphUpdates/.

Common Pitfalls

Validation

• DetectChanges() identifies modified properties via snapshot comparison
• Setting original values marks properties as modified or unchanged based on comparison with current values