Entity Framework/SQL2008 - How to Automatically Update LastModified fields for Entities?

I know I'm a little late to the party, but I just solved this for a project I'm working on and thought I'd share my solution.

First, to make the solution more re-usable, I created a base class with the timestamp properties:

public class EntityBase
{
    public DateTime? CreatedDate { get; set; }
    public DateTime? LastModifiedDate { get; set; }
}

Then I overrode the SaveChanges method on my DbContext:

public class MyContext : DbContext
{
    public override int SaveChanges()
    {
        ObjectContext context = ((IObjectContextAdapter)this).ObjectContext;

        //Find all Entities that are Added/Modified that inherit from my EntityBase
        IEnumerable<ObjectStateEntry> objectStateEntries =
            from e in context.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Added | EntityState.Modified)
            where
                e.IsRelationship == false &&
                e.Entity != null &&
                typeof(EntityBase).IsAssignableFrom(e.Entity.GetType())
            select e;

        var currentTime = DateTime.Now;

        foreach (var entry in objectStateEntries)
        {
            var entityBase = entry.Entity as EntityBase;

            if (entry.State == EntityState.Added)
            {
                entityBase.CreatedDate = currentTime;
            }

            entityBase.LastModifiedDate = currentTime;
        }

        return base.SaveChanges();
    }
}

As i have a service layer mediating between my controllers (im using ASP.NET MVC), and my repository, i have decided to auto-set the fields here.

Also, my POCO's have no relationships/abstractions, they are completely independant. I would like to keep it this way, and not mark any virtual properties, or create base classes.

So i created an interface, IAutoGenerateDateFields:

public interface IAutoGenerateDateFields
{
   DateTime LastModified { get;set; }
   DateTime CreatedOn { get;set; }
}

For any POCO's i wish to auto-generate these fields, i implement this inteface.

Using the example in my question:

public class PocoWithDates : IAutoGenerateDateFields
{
   public string PocoName { get; set; }
   public DateTime CreatedOn { get; set; }
   public DateTime LastModified { get; set; }
}

In my service layer, i now check if the concrete object implements the interface:

public void Add(SomePoco poco)
{
   var autoDateFieldsPoco = poco as IAutoGenerateDateFields; // returns null if it's not.

   if (autoDateFieldsPoco != null) // if it implements interface
   {
      autoDateFieldsPoco.LastModified = DateTime.Now;
      autoDateFieldsPoco.CreatedOn = DateTime.Now;
   }

   // ..go on about other persistence work.
}

I will probably break that code in the Add out to a helper/extension method later on.

But i think this is a decent solution for my scenario, as i dont want to use virtuals on the Save (as i'm using Unit of Work, Repository, and Pure POCO's), and don't want to use triggers.

If you have any thoughts/suggestions, let me know.

I would also like to put forward a late solution. This one is only applicable to the .NET Framework 4 but makes this sort of task trivial.

var vs = oceContext.ObjectStateManager.GetObjectStateEntries(EntityState.Modified);
foreach (var v in vs)
{
    dynamic dv = v.Entity;
    dv.DateLastEdit = DateTime.Now;
}

here is edited version of previous response. Previous one didn't work for updates for me.

public override int SaveChanges()
    {
        var objectStateEntries = ChangeTracker.Entries()
            .Where(e => e.Entity is TrackedEntityBase && (e.State == EntityState.Modified || e.State == EntityState.Added)).ToList();
        var currentTime = DateTime.UtcNow;
        foreach (var entry in objectStateEntries)
        {
            var entityBase = entry.Entity as TrackedEntityBase;
            if (entityBase == null) continue;
            if (entry.State == EntityState.Added)
            {
                entityBase.CreatedDate = currentTime;
            }
            entityBase.LastModifiedDate = currentTime;
        }

        return base.SaveChanges();
    }