I was reading about owned entity types here https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/ef/core/modeling/owned-entities#feedback and I was wondering when I would use that. Especially when using .ToTable(); although I am not sure if ToTable creates a relationship with keys.
I read the entire article so I understand that it essentially forces you to access the data via nav properties and prevents the owned table from being treated as an entity. They also say Include() is not needed and the data comes down with every query for the parent table so its not like you are reducing the amount of data that comes back.
So whats the point exactly? Also whats the point of "table splitting"?
It takes the place of Complex types with the option to set it up like a 1-1 relationship /w ToTable while automatically eager-loaded. This would use the same PK in both tables, same as 1-1.
The point Table-splitting would be that you want an object model that is normalized, where the table structure is not. This would fit scenarios where you have an existing table structure and want to split off related pieces of that data into sub-entities associated with the main entity. With the ToTable option, it would be similar to a 1-1 relationship, but automatically eager-loaded. However when considering the reasons to use a 1-1 relationship I would consider this option a bad choice.
The common reasons for using it in normal 1-1 relationships would include:
Splitting off expensive to load, rarely used data. (images, binary, memo)
Encapsulating data particular to a single application off of a common entity. i.e. if I have a "Customer" which is used by a billing system vs. a CRM I might have "CustomerBillingData" and "CustomerCRMData" owned by "Customer" rather than an inherited BillingCustomer / CRMCustomer. As there is a "single" customer that may serve one or both systems. Billing doesn't care about CRM data, CRM doesn't care about Billing. If all data is in "Customer" then both systems potentially need to be updated, and I cannot rely on constraints when the data is optional to the other system. By using composition I can enforce required data for a particular system.
In neither of these cases would I want to use table-splitting or anything that automatically eager-loads, so Owned Types /w ToTable would not replace 1-1 relationships by any stretch. It's essentially a more strict version of complex types, I'd say it's strictly used for entity organization. Not something I'd admit to wanting to use very often.
Related
Have a question about architecture: I have 2 subjects, DocumentLetter and DocumentOther, both should be approved by managers.
What would be better: to use 2 additional models DocumentLetterApprove and DocumentOtherApprove with entity relations, OR one additional table without relations but contains info about model identity (columns ModelName and ModelID)?
Or another example, attachments for different documents.
Letter, contract - 2 different tables and each should have own attachment.
I can use additional table for each model (for letter and for contract) or create one table with fields field ModelName and ModelID?
Personally, I would favor keeping the separate entities /w the relationships if there is any possibility that the related entities (approvals) could be in any way different depending on what they are applied to. I avoid ambiguously linked tables unless they represent a large 1 to many entity that might be associated to one of a number of other entities.
The problem with using something like a "ParentType" + "ParentId" is that you cannot leverage any form of FK constraint between the related tables. This also means you cannot leverage EF relationships given there will probably be times loading one of documents and wanting to know if it is approved and details from the approval.
If an Approval for the different document types is expected to be identical then I would sooner declare a common Approval table/Entity and put an ApprovalId on each of the document type tables to establish a many-to-1 relationship from the document to the approval.
If an approval is identical and can form a many to many, then a suitable many-to-many relation table DocumentLetter - DocumentLetterApproval (FKs) - Approval (Approval details) can be employed.
If a Letter approval vs. other approval could be different then: DocumentLetter - DocumentLetterApproval (Approval details)
Design decisions like this usually come from considerations around DRY (Don't Repeat Yourself). What advice I can give is that KISS (Keep It Stupidly Simple) should trump DRY, and that DRY should only apply to logic/structure that is proven to be identical. (not merely expected to be identical, or worse, expected to be similar) DRY should be a re-factoring consideration for constant improvement, not an up-front design decision. Coding for DRY too early ends up costing you time when you paint yourself into corners. By keeping code fluid these relationships can be proven, then if they are proven to be identical, re-factored into a single entity. Time is still spent re-factoring, but re-factoring to make code structure better rather than making code worse when having to work around design assumptions.
An example where i might consider an ambiguous loosely linked linked table would be something like File Attachments. I might have several entities that can hold references to 1 or more attachments. Attachments are not something I would need to link to often, but rather through an explicit action that I could fire off an additional query for anyways since I'm not about to pre-load attachment details when loading a document. In this case an attachment table might have a ParentType and ParentId indexed so that I can quickly get details for a particular document or other entity. I would never try to do something like Context.Documents.Include(x => x.Attachments) or the like, there would be no such reference available. Attachments would always be accessed by single document so I would resort to Context.Attachments.Where(x => x.ParentType == ParentTypes.DocumentLetter && x.ParentId == documenLetterId).ToList();
I have experience working on systems that were designed solely with these types of ambiguously linked tables. They are not only extremely slow as they scale to any reasonable size, but they are also extremely error prone as systems evolve and the nature of the relationships change. Records have a tendency to get out of sync with the expected rules.
As documented in questions like Entity Framework Indexing ALL foreign key columns, EF Core seems to automatically generate an index for every foreign key. This is a sound default for me (let's not get into an opinion war here...), but there are cases where it is just a waste of space and slowing down inserts and updates. How do I prevent it on a case-by-case basis?
I don't want to wholly turn it off, as it does more good than harm; I don't want to have to manually configure it for all those indices I do want. I just want to prevent it on specific FKs.
Related side question: is the fact that these index are automatically created mentioned anywhere in the EF documentation? I can't find it anywhere, which is probably why I can't find how to disable it?
Someone is bound to question why I would want to do this... so in the interest of saving time, the OPer of the linked question gave a great example in a comment:
We have a People table and an Addresses table, for example. The
People.AddressID FK was Indexed by EF but I only ever start from a
People row and search for the Addresses record; I never find an
Addresses row and then search the People.AddressID column for a
matching record.
EF Core has a configuration option to replace one of its services.
I found replacing IConventionSetBuilder to custom one would be a much cleaner approach.
https://giridharprakash.me/2020/02/12/entity-framework-core-override-conventions/
If it is really necessary to avoid the usage of some foreign keys indices - as far as I know (currently) - in .Net Core, it is necessary to remove code that will set the indices in generated migration code file.
Another approach would be to implement a custom migration generator in combination with an attribute or maybe an extension method that will avoid the index creation. You could find more information in this answer for EF6: EF6 preventing not to create Index on Foreign Key. But I'm not sure if it will work in .Net Core too. The approach seems to be bit different, here is a MS doc article that should help.
But, I strongly advise against doing this! I'm against doing this, because you have to modify generated migration files and not because of not using indices for FKs. Like you mentioned in question's comments, in real world scenarios some cases need such approach.
For other people they are not really sure if they have to avoid the usage of indices on FKs and therefor they have to modify migration files:
Before you go that way, I would suggest to implement the application with indices on FKs and would check the performance and space usage. Therefor I would produce a lot test data.
If it really results in performance and space usage issues on a test or QA stage, it's still possible to remove indices in migration files.
Because we already chat about EnsureCreated vs migrations here for completeness further information about EnsureCreated and migrations (even if you don't need it :-)):
MS doc about EnsureCreated() (It will not update your database if you have some model changes - migrations would do it)
interesting too (even if for EF7) EF7 EnsureCreated vs. Migrate Methods
Entity Framework core 2.0 (the latest version available when the question was asked) doesn't have such a mechanism, but EF Core 2.2 just might - in the form of Owned Entity Types.
Namely, since you said:
" I only ever start from a People row and search for the Addresses record; I never find an Addresses row"
Then you may want to make the Address an Owned Entity Type (and especially the variant with 'Storing owned types in separate tables', to match your choice of storing the address information in a separate Addresses table).
The docs of the feature seem to say a matching:
"Owned entities are essentially a part of the owner and cannot exist without it"
By the way, now that the feature is in EF, this may justify why EF always creates the indexes for HasMany/HasOne. It's likely because the Has* relations are meant to be used towards other entities (as opposed to 'value objects') and these, since they have their own identity, are meant to be queried independently and allow accessing other entities they relate to using navigational properties. For such a use case, it would be simply dangerous use such navigation properties without indexes (a few queries could make the database slow down hugely).
There are few caveats here though:
Turning an entity into an owned one doesn't instruct EF only about the index, but rather it instructs to map the model to database in a way that is a bit different (more on this below) but the end effect is in fact free of that extra index on People.
But chances are, this actually might be the better solution for you: this way you also say that no one should query the Address (by not allowing to create a DbSet<T> of that type), minimizing the chance of someone using it to reach the other entities with these costly indexless queries.
As to what the difference is, you'll note that if you make the Address owned by Person, EF will create a PersonId column in the Address table, which is different to your AddressId in the People table (in a sense, lack of the foreign key is a bit of a cheat: an index for querying Person from Address is there, it's just that it's the primary key index of the People table, which was there anyways). But take note that this design is actually rather good - it not only needs one column less (no AddressId in People), but it also guarantees that there's no way to make orphaned Address record that your code will never be able to access.
If you would still like to keep the AddressId column in the Addresses, then there's still one option:
Just choose a name of AddressId for the foreign key in the Addresses table and just "pretend" you don't know that it happens to have the same values as the PersonId :)
If that option isn't funny (e.g. because you can't change your database schema), then you're somewhat out of luck. But do take note that among the Current shortcomings of EF they still list "Instances of owned entity types cannot be shared by multiple owners", while some shortcomings of the previous versions are already listed as addressed. Might be worth watching that space as, it seems to me, resolving that one will probably involve introducing the ability to have your AddressId in the People, because in such a model, for the owned objects to be shared among many entities the foreign keys would need to be sitting with the owning entities to create an association to the same value for each.
in the OnModelCreating override
AFTER the call to
base.OnModelCreating(modelBuilder);
add:
var indexForRemoval = modelBuilder.Entity<You_Table_Entity>().HasIndex(x => x.Column_Index_Is_On).Metadata;
modelBuilder.Entity<You_Table_Entity>().Metadata.RemoveIndex(indexForRemoval);
'''
We develop the back office application with quite large Db.
It's not reasonable to load everything from DB to memory so when model's proprties are requested we read from DB (via EF)
But many of our UIs are just simple lists of entities with some (!) properties presented to the user.
For example, we just want to show Id, Title and Name.
And later when user select the item and want to perform some actions the whole object is needed. Now we have list of items stored in memory.
Some properties contain large textst, images or other data.
EF works with entities and reading a bunch of large objects degrades performance notably.
As far as I understand, the problem can be solved by creating lightweight entities and using them in appropriate context.
First.
I'm afraid that each view will make us create new LightweightEntity and we eventually will end with bloated object context.
Second. As the Model wraps EF we need to provide methods for various entities.
Third. ViewModels communicate and pass entities to each other.
So I'm stuck with all these considerations and need good architectural design advice.
Any ideas?
For images an large textst you may consider table splitting, which is commonly used to split a table in a lightweight entity and a "heavy" entity.
But I think what you call lightweight "entities" are data transfer objects (DTO's). These are not supplied by the context (so it won't get bloated) but by projection from entities, which is done in a repository or service.
For projection you can use AutoMapper, especially its newer feature that I describe here. This allows you to reduce the number of methods you need to provide "for various entities" (DTO's), because the type to project to can be given in a generic type parameter.
I have some views that I want to use EF 4.1 to query. These are specific optimized views that will not have keys to speak of; there will be no deletions, updates, just good ol'e select.
But EF wants a key set on the model. Is there a way to tell EF to move on, there's nothing to worry about?
More Details
The main purpose of this is to query against a set of views that have been optimized by size, query parameters and joins. The underlying tables have their PKs, FKs and so on. It's indexed, statiscized (that a word?) and optimized.
I'd like to have a class like (this is a much smaller and simpler version of what I have...):
public MyObject //this is a view
{
Name{get;set}
Age{get;set;}
TotalPimples{get;set;}
}
and a repository, built off of EF 4.1 CF where I can just
public List<MyObject> GetPimply(int numberOfPimples)
{
return db.MyObjects.Where(d=> d.TotalPimples > numberOfPimples).ToList();
}
I could expose a key, but whats the real purpose of dislaying a 2 or 3 column natural key? That will never be used?
Current Solution
Seeming as their will be no EF CF solution, I have added a complex key to the model and I am exposing it in the model. While this goes "with the grain" on what one expects a "well designed" db model to look like, in this case, IMHO, it added nothing but more logic to the model builder, more bytes over the wire, and extra properties on a class. These will never be used.
There is no way. EF demands unique identification of the record - entity key. That doesn't mean that you must expose any additional column. You can mark all your current properties (or any subset) as a key - that is exactly how EDMX does it when you add database view to the model - it goes through columns and marks all non-nullable and non-computed columns as primary key.
You must be aware of one problem - EF internally uses identity map and entity key is unique identification in this map (each entity key can be associated only with single entity instance). It means that if you are not able to choose unique identification of the record and you load multiple records with the same identification (your defined key) they will all be represented by a single entity instance. Not sure if this can cause you any issues if you don't plan to modify these records.
EF is looking for a unique way to identify records. I am not sure if you can force it to go counter to its nature of desiring something unique about objects.
But, this is an answer to the "show me how to solve my problem the way I want to solve it" question and not actually tackling your core business requirement.
If this is a "I don't want to show the user the key", then don't bind it when you bind the data to your form (web or windows). If this is a "I need to share these items, but don't want to give them the keys" issue, then map or surrogate the objects into an external domain model. Adds a bit of weight to the solution, but allows you to still do the heavy lifting with a drag and drop surface (EF).
The question is what is the business requirement that is pushing you to create a bunch of objects without a unique identifier (key).
One way to do this would be not to use views at all.
Just add the tables to your EF model and let EF create the SQL that you are currently writing by hand.
In Core Data, most of the time relationships are modeled bidirectional. But the docs say in another place:
It typically only makes sense to model
a to-one relationship in one
direction.
Within Core Data you should always use a bi-directional relationship unless you have an extreme edge case. If you use one directional relationships then you are going to incur performance penalties within core data itself as well as have issues with referential integrity.
Unless you know specifically why you need a uni-directional relationship then you should always do a bi-directional relationship; the rule is that simple.
While Franci's answer is interesting, I have to disagree with it. Even in the examples he provided you should have a bi-directional relationship. There are almost no situations where a uni-directional relationship is going to be a better fit.
The answer is determined by the referential integrity requirements you want to enforce. If updating or removing the object on either side affects the object on the other side of the relationship, you need two-way. However, if updating/removing the object on one side does not affect the object on the other, then a one way is a better model.
Take for example a parent-children model with a 0..n : 1 cardinality (I prefer the 1 : 0..n representation, but for the sake of argument let's reverse it). Adding a new child, updating an existing child or deleting a child has no effect on the parent object, so there's no need for the parent to know explicitly about all the children (except when it comes time to pay college tuition). However, removing the parent has an adverse effect on the children objects, as they need to be deleted or re-parented, otherwise are orphaned and in an invalid state. Thus, it's better to model it as a one-way relationship. Another example is inventory - parts catalog relationship, again with 0..n : 1 cardinality.
It's a matter of ownership: usually it doesn't make sense to have a bidirectional relationship because an entity conceptually owns the other one.
Think about some examples. If you have a structure in which you have users and an user can have a simple bank account associated with him. If you make the relation bidirectional you mean that an user owns an account but also an account owns an user.
This will make sense because you don't want to delete an user whenever you delete his account. That's why usually you don't need to have it bidirectional: because it's an additional constraint that is not needed since most of the time you will have an entity that has the other but not vice-versa.
I think you read the whole document about relations you referenced in your question.
The document also describes all disadvantages of using unidirectional relations, and that only under very rare circumstances it makes sense to create unidirectional relations.
As a general rule i would strongly recommend creating bidirectional relations, except you are knowing exactly why not to do so.