entityframework clone or copy an entity instance to another object - entity-framework

I am working on an asp.net mvc core 2.0 project and entityframework.
I am working with viewmodel concept.
This mean i do not pass entities instances directly to my view, i pass a viewmodel instance which only contains what the view needs.
in one case, i need to pass the entire entity fields plus other informations.
What i've done is a derivated my ViewModel class from my Entity Class. and i add the extra fields:
public MyViewModel: Person
{
// I will automaticly have Person fields in MyViewModel
public bool IsSelected {get;set;}
public String otherinformation {get;set;}
...
}
I am fed up with assigning each fields of my viewmodel from my entity instance.
myviewmodelinstance.field1 = myentity.field1;
myviewmodelinstance.field2 = myentity.field2;
myviewmodelinstance.field3 = myentity.field3;
myviewmodelinstance.IsSelected = false;
...
And i need to do the inverse operation in the postback.
Is there a way to "copy" or "clone" every fields, like this:
myentity.CopyTo(myviewmodelinstance);
myviewmodelinstance.IsSelected = false;
Thanks

You could use the AutoMapper to achieve it. It is the ideal way to perform it. Another option is that you can serialize and deseriliaze the object as json.
var myviewmodelinstance = JsonConvert.DeserializeObject<MyViewModel>(JsonConvert.SerializeObject(myentity));
Note : The code I provided required Json.Net

Related

EF Filtering a Child Table with Lazy Load

I'm using entity framework with POCOs and the repository pattern and am wondering if there is any way to filter a child list lazy load. Example:
class Person
{
public virtual Organisation organisation {set; get;}
}
class Organisation
{
public virtual ICollection<Product> products {set; get;}
}
class Product
{
public bool active {set; get;}
}
Currently I only have a person repository because I'm always starting from that point, so ideally I would like to do the following:
Person person = personRepo.GetById(Id);
var products = person.organisation.products;
And have it only load products where active = true from the database.
Is this possible and if so how?
EDIT My best guess would be either a filter can be added to the configuration of the entity. Or there might be a way to intercept/override the lazy load call and modify it. Obviously if I created an Organisation Repository I could manually load it as I please but I am trying to avoid that.
There's not a direct way to do this via lazy loading, but if you were willing to explicitly load the collection, you could follow whats in this blog, see the Applying filters when explicitly loading related entities section.
context.Entry(person)
.Collection(p => p.organisation.products)
.Query()
.Where(u => u.IsActive)
.Load();
You can do what Mark Oreta and luksan suggest while keeping all the query logic within the repository.
All you have to do is pass a Lazy<ICollection<Product>> into the organization constructor, and use the logic they provided. It will not evaluate until you access the value property of the lazy instance.
UPDATE
/*
First, here are your changes to the Organisation class:
Add a constructor dependency on the delegate to load the products to your
organization class. You will create this object in the repository method
and assign it to the Person.Organization property
*/
public class Organisation
{
private readonly Lazy<ICollection<Product>> lazyProducts;
public Organisation(Func<ICollection<Product>> loadProducts){
this.lazyProducts = new Lazy<ICollection<Product>>(loadProducts);
}
// The underlying lazy field will not invoke the load delegate until this property is accessed
public virtual ICollection<Product> Products { get { return this.lazyProducts.Value; } }
}
Now, in your repository method, when you construct the Person object you will assign the Organisation property with an Organisation object containing the lazy loading field.
So, without seeing your whole model, it will looks something like
public Person GetById(int id){
var person = context.People.Single(p => p.Id == id);
/* Now, I'm not sure about the cardinality of the person-organization or organisation
product relationships, but let's assume you have some way to access the PK of the
organization record from the Person and that the Product has a reference to
its Organisation. I may be misinterpreting your model, but hopefully you
will get the idea
*/
var organisationId = /* insert the aforementioned magic here */
Func<ICollection<Product>> loadProducts = () => context.Products.Where(product => product.IsActive && product.OrganisationId == organisationId).ToList();
person.Organisation = new Organisation( loadProducts );
return person;
}
By using this approach, the query for the products will not be loaded until you access the Products property on the Organisationinstance, and you can keep all your logic in the repository. There's a good chance that I made incorrect assumptions about your model (as the sample code is quite incomplete), but I think there is enough here for you to see how to use the pattern. Let me know if any of this is unclear.
This might be related:
Using CreateSourceQuery in CTP4 Code First
If you were to redefine your properties as ICollection<T> rather than IList<T> and enable change-tracking proxies, then you might be able to cast them to EntityCollection<T> and then call CreateSourceQuery() which would allow you to execute LINQ to Entities queries against them.
Example:
var productsCollection = (EntityCollection<Product>)person.organisation.products;
var productsQuery = productsCollection.CreateSourceQuery();
var activeProducts = products.Where(p => p.Active);
Is your repository using something like:
IQueryable<T> Find(System.Linq.Expressions.Expression<Func<T, bool>> expression)
If so you can do something like this:
var person = personRepo.Find(p => p.organisation.products.Any(e => e.active)).FirstOrDefault();
You could possibly use Query() method to achieve this. Something like:
context.Entry(person)
.Collection(p => p.organisation.products)
.Query()
.Where(pro=> pro.Active==true)
.Load();
Have a look at this page click here

How to solve field wrapping in Entity Framework database-first

When I use database first, after creating the edmx file, all the conceptual models have already been generated. But I want to do some special operations on certain fields. For example, there's a field named 'price'; I want the matching property 'Price' to return double of the 'price'. How can I do that? If I modify the getter in the code, every time I update the model from database, all of the modifications go away.
What's the correct way to do this?
What you can do is create a partial class for entity which contains the Price Property and put a getter like this (A property with double price will be meaningful ),
Public partial class YourEntity{
Public float DoublePrice{
get { return Price*2;}
}
}
Or you can create a class inherited from the entity,
Public partial class Entity:YourEntity{
Public override float Price{
get { return base.Price*2;}
}
}

What is the best way to add attributes to auto-generated entities (using VS2010 and EF4)

ASP.NET MVC2 has strong support for using attributes on entities (validation, and extending Html helper class and more).
If I generated my Model from the Database using VS2010 EF4 Entity Data Model (edmx and it's cs class), And I want to add attributes
on some of the entities. what would be the best practice ? how should I cope with updating the model (adding more fields / tables to the database and merging them into the edmx) - will it keep my attributes or generate a new cs file erasing everything ?
(Manual changes to this file may cause
unexpected behavior in your
application.)
(Manual changes to this
file will be overwritten if the code
is regenerated.)
Generally you'd create what is called partial classes to extend your auto-generated objects.
Adding Attributes to Generated Classes
With the "buddy class" concept, linked above, and data annotations I use this extention method. I forget where I got it, so kudos to the original author.
We use it like
List<ValidationResult> errorList = new List<ValidationResult>();
bool bValid = client.IsValid<Client, ClientMetadata>(ref errorList, false);
public static bool IsValid<T, U>(this T obj, ref List<ValidationResult> errors, bool validateAllProperties = true) where T : IValidatableObject
{
//If metadata class type has been passed in that's different from the class to be validated, register the association
if (typeof(T) != typeof(U))
{
TypeDescriptor.AddProviderTransparent(new AssociatedMetadataTypeTypeDescriptionProvider(typeof(T), typeof(U)), typeof(T));
}
var validationContext = new ValidationContext(obj, null, null);
var validationResults = new List<ValidationResult>();
Validator.TryValidateObject(obj, validationContext, validationResults, validateAllProperties);
errors = validationResults;
if (validationResults.Count > 0)
return false;
else
return true;
}
We use partial classes, but if you need them persisted and handled by EF, the "Update Model from Database" option is your best friend.

Dependency Injection & Model Binding (ASP MVC, Autofac), When to use what?

This is more like a conceptual question. When to use Model Binding (in ASP.NET MVC Framework) and when to inject objects using IoC (lets say Autofac here) ?
One specific scenario is like lets say, I have the following action method
public ActionResult EditProfile(string UserId)
{
// get user object from repository using the the UserId
// edit profile
// save changes
// return feedback
}
In the above scenario, is it possible to inject a user object to action method such that it automatically gets the user object using the UserId ? The resulting signature being:
public ActionResult EditProfile(UserProfile userObj) //userObj injected *somehow* to automatically retreive the object from repo using UserId ?
Sorry if it all doesn't makes sense. It`s my first time using IoC.
EDIT:
This is the way to do it > http://buildstarted.com/2010/09/12/custom-model-binders-in-mvc-3-with-imodelbinder/
You can do what you need using a custom action filter. By overriding OnActionExecuting, we have access to the route data, and the action parameters of the action that will be executed. Given:
public class BindUserProfileAttribute : ActionFilterAttribute
{
public override OnActionExecuting(FilterContext filterContext)
{
string id = (string)filterContext.RouteData.Values["UserId"];
var model = new UserProfile { Id = id };
filtextContext.ActionParameters["userObj"] = model;
}
}
This attribute allows us to create the parameters that will be passed into the action, so we can load the user object at this point.
[BindUserProfile]
public ActionResult EditProfile(UserProfile userObj)
{
}
You'll probably need to get specific with your routes:
routes.MapRoute(
"EditProfile",
"Account/EditProfile/{UserId}",
new { controller = "Account", action = "EditProfile" });
In MVC3 we get access to the new IDepedencyResolver interface, which allows us to perform IoC/SL using whatever IoC container or service locator we want, so we can push a service like a IUserProfileFactory into your filter, to then be able to create your UserProfile instance.
Hope that helps?
Model binding is used for your data. Dependency injection is used for your business logic.

How to relate entities that are not directly mapped through a navigation property

I have an object that has been populated with the contents of four different related entities. However i have another entity in which i cannot include as part of the query due to it not being related in the navigation properites directly to the IQueryable table i am pulling. The entity i am trying to include is related to one of the four different entities that have been included successfully.
Is there a way to include(during db hit or afterwards) this entity as part of the overall object i am creating?
Here is an example of what my calls look like to build the CARTITEM object:
public List<CARTITEM> ListCartItem(Guid cartId)
{
//Create the Entity object
List<CARTITEM> itemInfo = null;
using (Entities webStoreContext = new Entities())
{
//Invoke the query
itemInfo = WebStoreDelegates.selectCartItems.Invoke(webStoreContext).ByCartID(cartId).ToList();
}
//Return the result set
return itemInfo;
}
here is the selectCartItems filter(Where i would normally do the includes):
public static Func<Entities, IQueryable<CARTITEM>> selectCartItems =
CompiledQuery.Compile<Entities, IQueryable<CARTITEM>>(
(cart) => from c in cart.CARTITEM.Include("ITEM").Include("SHIPPINGOPTION").Include("RELATEDITEM").Include("PROMOTION")
select c);
from this i have my CARTITEM object. Problem is i want to include the PROMOTIONTYPE table in this object, but since the CARTIEM entity doesn't have a navigation property directly to the PROMOTIONTYPE table i get an error.
Let me know if you need any more clarification.
Thanks,
Billy
You can use join and if it is the same database and server it should generate the join in SQL and do it all in one call...
LinqToEnties join example