title: mvc3 database first model defaults
body: <p>I have a database first design. I want to have default values for my model so that a user can just leave an editor textbox blank for one of my nullable fields. EF doesn't seem to want to just throw null into the database, so I was hoping I could set default values to null for my nullable attributes. </p>
  
  <p>Ie I want to insert null into my database for an attribute if the textbox is left blank when submitted. </p>
  
  <p>I've read you can add a contructor to a partial class to do what I want. So you would basically have:</p>
  
  <pre><code>public partial class MyClass{
      public MyClass()
      {
          field1 = null; //this would be the default value for field1
      }
  }
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>The only problem is the autogenerated partial class for the model I'm working on already has a constructor, so I can't add a constructor to a different (permanent) partial class. I don't want to update the autogenerated partial class because it will just be overwritten when I update my edmx from the database. </p>