Adding Validation Attributes With an Entity Framework Data Model

Solution 1:

You can create a partial class, separate from the EF generated class, to store the metadata in.

//Contact.cs - The original auto-generated file 
[System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations.MetadataType(typeof(ContactMetadata))]
public partial class Contact
{
    public int ContactID { get; set; }
    public string ContactName { get; set; }
    public string ContactCell { get; set; }
}

//ContactMetadata.cs - New, seperate class

using System.ComponentModel;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;
internal sealed class ContactMetadata
{
    [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name is required.")]
    [StringLength(5)]  
    public string ContactName;
}

Solution 2:

Mason240 answer works well, I will try to improve it : you could create a new ContactDataAnnotations.cs class with :

//ContactDataAnnotations.cs - A new file 
using System.ComponentModel;
using System.ComponentModel.DataAnnotations;

[MetadataType(typeof(ContactMetadata))]
public partial class Contact
{
    // No field here
}

internal sealed class ContactMetadata
{
    [Required(ErrorMessage = "Name is required.")]
    [StringLength(5)]  
    public string ContactName {get; set; }
}

This way, you can regenerate your Contact class through EF without touching DataAnnotations - and without warning, by the way.