Code First enumerations are placed in lookup tables

So I'm not going to lie, my solution is a little in-depth, but I've been using it now for the past few days and I believe it works exactly the way I need it.

Start at the beginning, my base class I created:

public abstract class LookupTableBase
{
    [Key]
    [DatabaseGenerated(DatabaseGeneratedOption.None)]
    public int Id { get; set; }

    [Required]
    public string Name { get; set; }
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Here is an example of one of my Entity Model lookup tables:

/// <summary>
///     Lookup Table for Enumeration AddressTypes
///     File Reference: DataAccessLayer/Enumerations/Locators.cs
///     DO NOT USE
///     SHOULD NOT BE AVAILABLE IN ENTITY MODELS
/// </summary>
[Table("AddressTypes", Schema = "Lookup")]
public class AddressType : LookupTableBase {}

      

        
        
        
      

    

Here is the listing that comes with this lookup table:

public enum AddressTypes
{
    [StringValue("")]
    Unknown = 0,

    [StringValue("Home")]
    Home = 1,

    [StringValue("Mailing")]
    Mailing = 2,

    [StringValue("Business")]
    Business = 3
}

      

        
        
        
      

    

The StringValue attribute is a custom attribute that I created (based on examples I found on the internet) that allow me to call:

AddressTypes.Home.GetStringValue();

      

        
        
        
      

    

That returns a string: Home

.

I add a Lookup Entity model to my DbSets so that the table is created, but I never refer directly to the Lookup Entity models in any of the other Entity models. Its sole purpose is to create database lookup tables so that I can create foreign key constraints for them.

public DbSet<AddressType> AddressTypes { get; set; }

      

        
        
        
      

    

In my OnModelCreating method for my context, I had to add this because the data annotation didn't go all the way:

modelBuilder.Entity<AddressType>()
            .Property(x => x.Id)
            .HasDatabaseGeneratedOption(DatabaseGeneratedOption.None);

      

        
        
        
      

    

In my migration config file, I add this to the Seed method:

var addressTypeCount = Enum.GetValues(typeof (AddressTypes)).Length;
var addressTypes = new List<AddressType>();
for (var i = 1; i < addressTypeCount; i++) {
    addressTypes.Add(new AddressType {
                                         Id = i,
                                         Name = ((AddressTypes)i).GetStringValue()
                                     });
}
context.AddressTypes.AddOrUpdate(c => c.Id, addressTypes.ToArray());
context.SaveChanges();

      

        
        
        
      

    

Finally, in the migration file itself, I move all methods to create the lookup table to the top of the list, now I can add foreign key constraints to any table that references this enum. In my case, I took one more step. Since the migration class is partial, I created another partial class to match it. Two methods are created:

public void LookupDataUp()
public void LookupDataDown()

      

        
        
        
      

    

In the LookupDataUp method, I add all custom foreign keys and indexes to the LookupDataDown. I am deleting all my custom foreign keys and indexes.

When I run Update-Database, all my tables that used to have some kind of integer value that represented something (in this case AddressType) but had no real value now have a value that can be seen by associating it with it lookup table.

I admit it seems like a lot of work to get a small amount of data in the database, but now every time I delete / modify / add new items to my list, it automatically translates to the DB. Plus, as I said in the above question, this creates the integrity of the database by having the foreign key constraint in the "integer" field.